In case you’re just joining us, here’s what happened: last month, news leaked on Twitter that Katie Roiphe was planning to write a piece for Harper’s in which she would name the then-anonymous creator of the Shitty Media Men list, a briefly-circulated Google spreadsheet that other anonymous readers could update with rumors, stories, and warnings about, well, shitty men in media. The outrage was swift and widespread. Nicole Cliffe offered to pay the publication fee to any writer who wanted to pull their piece from Harper’s (as well as help them get it printed elsewhere). Jessica Valenti encouraged readers opposed to outing the creator of the Shitty Media Men list to complain to Harper’s directly. Many writers called for Harper’s to kill the piece. Ecco even pulled an ad from the magazine. Then, Moira Donegan outed herself as the creator of the list. Katie Roiphe joined Twitter to defend herself, sort of, and denied that she was going to dox Donegan. No one believed her.

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This weekend, the piece went live at Harper’s. It’s not great. Many have noticed that it is boring. It is mostly a complaint about “Twitter feminists” and their treatment of Roiphe, plus another version of the argument that the #MeToo moment has gone too far. She compares the Shitty Media Men list to an “anonymously crowd-sourced list of Muslims who might blow up planes,” which would be more offensive if it wasn’t pure nonsense. She tries to undercut the women she’s writing about by using their Twitter handles, which is a bizarre strategy since this whole essay is based on the premise that she takes Twitter seriously. She also seems not to understand jokes? On the other hand, she does carefully avoid using the term “hysteria,” though you can tell she really, really wants to. But don’t take my word for it. The responses from the literary and media worlds (yes, of Twitter, because this is the space in which this story exists) have been quite as sharp as you might imagine. Here’s some of the best, organized more or less thematically:

Jessica Valenti made it clear that the original problem wasn’t that Roiphe had a dissenting opinion from “Twitter feminists”—it was that she was planning to cause harm to an actual, real life woman:

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Many people pointed out that all this essay proves is that Roiphe is not a great journalist, and dishonest to boot:

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And perhaps not particularly equipped to write a piece about a platform she does not engage with:

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Some responded with poetry:

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Others did not read it at all:

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And of course, there was mockery:

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Emily Temple

Emily Temple

Emily Temple is the managing editor at Lit Hub. Her first novel, The Lightness, was published by William Morrow/HarperCollins in June 2020. You can buy it here.