We’ve reached the finals, after a week of nostalgia and a weekend of quarterfinal voting. The final two are a fitting last pairing, though we were sad to see Should writers read? and @GuyInYourMFA get left behind in the penultimate round. The final tally between @GuyInYourMFA and cat person came down to less than 1% of the vote, though! Kind of fitting that Dana Schwartz, the mind behind the @Guy, told us cat person was her favorite Lit Twitt drama on Friday.

But as we predicted on the podcast last week, it’s come down to Joyce Carol Oates vs. the “Cat Person” drama.

JCO is one of our own, a true people’s champion. She can do it all, an extraordinary writer of stories, nonfiction, plays and more, who also fluidly adopted social media, tossing off memorable phrases like “wan little husks of ‘auto fiction,’” or imagining dark depths behind something banal, or absolutely shredding a boy billionaire. As Jessie Gaynor wrote, “She remains the only writer whose Twitter presence makes me more interested in reading their non-Twitter work.”

And “Cat Person” is the Twitter drama that went wide, jumping containment from the book-obsessed corner of the internet and our catty groupchats, to land in major outlets, Hollywood, and our family group chats—I have a distinct memory of my mom asking me about it, which tells you everything you need to know. And what a joy that all of this was over a short story! A win for literature, for anyone that’s had to defend getting an MFA, or argued that fiction still matters, or felt depressed at the state of letters. Though the discourse might have been baser than we’d have liked, it showed that a piece of short fiction can still make waves in our culture.

It’s come down to these two, a Twitter personality speaking to the social media sickos versus a Twitter drama that spoke to a wider audience. The insider vs. the outsider.

Readers, it’s up to you to crown a winner.

Behold, the updated Bracket:

[Click to enlarge]

*

Rules

Now that Literary Twitter is dead, we’re asking, “What was it?” In this bracket, we’re seeking the Most Literary Twitter moment, discourse, or personage. What has been stuck in your mind, who sent you running to your group chat, what kept you scrolling for longer than you should have? What are you still bringing up in conversation today and having to explain to people with normal brains? In short, what most exemplified whatever the hell Literary Twitter was?

We’ve sorted all of the contenders (that we can remember) into four categories: Existential Crises, Matters of Taste, Bad Behavior, and Reading Comprehension. Each quadrant’s winner will face off on Friday, before the final head-to-head on Monday, November 24th to crown our winner.

*

Voting Schedule

Round of 64 Character Limit: Voting open now until tonight at 7:00 PM EST (Check out the results from the first round here)

Round of “dang, only 32 likes?”: Voting open Tuesday, November 18th from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST (Round two results are here)

Round of “sweet, 16 new followers”: Voting open Wednesday, November 19th from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST (Results from this round, here)

The Retweeted 8: Voting open Thursday, November 20th from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST (Round four’s results)

The Quarter Finals: Voting open Friday, November 21st from 10:00 AM, until Sunday November 23rd at 7:00 PM EST (See the results)

You are here –> The Finals: Voting open Monday, November 24th from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST

And the winner will be announced on Tuesday, November 25th!

*

How To Vote

We’ve got handy voting forms embedded below. Like looking back at the old Twitter interface, they’re a little ugly, but they get the job done. Simply select which of the two discourses you think should advance, and we’ll tabulate the votes at the end of each day.

*

Scroll on….

joyce carol oates (2) vs. cat person (1)

joyce carol oates (2)

Trending Because: Joyce Carol Oates is the demigod of Literary Twitter. This is a woman so prolific she writes a book a year and still has time to tweet about everything under the sun, the takes ranging from terrible to excellent to head-scratching to hilarious to the picture of her foot.

As Eric Thurm put it on this very website: “Like your mythical uncle, Joyce Carol Oates is, at heart, a troll. Prolific across all mediums, it is not difficult to imagine Oates delighting in the act of tweeting, of tossing thoughts into the world, both for the enjoyment of the craft and to see what happens, like tiny crystalline bombs. Joyce Carol Oates is very bad at Twitter, which is also to say she’s very good at Twitter.”

Also: the woman is 87! She just tweeted 3 minutes ago. All hail.

Retweeted by: Wan little husks

VS.

cat person (1)

Trending Because: In 2017, The New Yorker published a short story by a then-unknown writer, and within days it had gone viral. It would become the year’s second-most-read piece on the website, despite it being published in (checks watch) December. And again, a short story. Everyone was talking about it, even people who didn’t usually read fiction. (This was during the #MeToo movement.) Some of those people actually didn’t know they were reading fiction. Many women were in awe of how relatable it was. Many men felt they had to explain that it wasn’t that relatable at all. Some people bemoaned the fact that “relatability” was apparently important to readers; other people bemoaned the fact that some people were complaining about literature going viral. Fine.

But THEN, years later, a woman named Alexis Nowicki wrote an article alleging that “Cat Person” was based on her life. The debate about the story was instantly reignited, this time with a new bent: is it okay to steal the lives of others to write viral short stories and get seven figure book deals? Turns out there was actually no answer. Isn’t that always the way?

Retweeted by: People with ex-boyfriends

Thanks for voting! Tomorrow, the winner!