Another MeFi author sighting

December 11, 2017 1:39 PM

If you read the short story Cat Person in the New Yorker and the NYT interview with author Kristen Roupenian, maybe you wondered what other MeFites thought of it, because it seemed to be right up Metafilter's alley. So did the author. Congratulations to MeFi's Own Sock Person Cat Puppet, who has great taste in sockpuppet usernames, among many other things.
posted by RedOrGreen to MetaFilter-Related at 1:39 PM (29 comments total)

Heh, yeah, that was a great little "oh!" moment in the thread.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:41 PM on December 11, 2017

Here she's interviewed by the Times.
posted by Stanczyk at 3:15 PM on December 11, 2017

I mean, like RedOrGreen said, she's also in the Times.
posted by Stanczyk at 3:16 PM on December 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

There's also two articles in The Atlantic and one in Salon.
posted by suelac at 5:24 PM on December 11, 2017

It has been great to see the story and the author getting so much attention, it is well deserved.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:27 PM on December 11, 2017

4chan : lolcats :: metafilter : cat person
posted by Going To Maine at 7:04 PM on December 11, 2017 [4 favorites]

*conspiratorial wink*


wait... I didn't mean it like that! No, seriously...
posted by From Bklyn at 11:46 PM on December 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

This story (and the story around it) is great because it implies that all the work our community has done towards making clear and plain the effects of power imbalances in relationships has found a way out to the wider world, where it can hopeful provoke even more discussion and consideration and, you know, do some more good.

'Cause seriously, all these long discussions are important and (for me) really helpful in showing how life is for other people - leading to compassion.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:15 AM on December 12, 2017 [23 favorites]

Hooray for literary fiction!
posted by rollick at 2:24 AM on December 12, 2017

... all the work our community has done towards making clear and plain the effects of power imbalances in relationships has found a way out to the wider world, where it can hopeful provoke even more discussion and consideration and, you know, do some more good.

I've been guilty of quietly wondering whether the emotional labour threads were such lengthy echo-chambers (for good reasons) that the value of some of the gems deep within them would only be shared among a relatively small number of readers. I am very happy I was wrong and that they provided an incubation space which helped produce this influential story.
posted by Busy Old Fool at 4:25 AM on December 12, 2017 [11 favorites]

Busy Old Fool: I like the idea that the flipside of an echo-chamber is that it's an incubation space.
posted by ambrosen at 5:49 AM on December 12, 2017 [36 favorites]

Guardian: Cat Person going viral shows how rare it is to explore women’s sex lives
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:23 AM on December 12, 2017 [6 favorites]

Wow, cool! Congrats, SP-CP!
posted by carter at 9:48 AM on December 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

This is really only a jumping-off point for me to say that I am constantly amazed by how many brilliant and accomplished people there are around here--and how many other people with maybe less impressive resumes but also amazing minds who choose here to say, you know, stuff, which has made me a better person by miles since the first time I stumbled across the site, and also allowed me to look really clever to my friends when I sent them this link before they saw it elsewhere. (Cough.)

Maybe most of us never do meet the mythical boy who will find our past as hysterical as we do, but I did have this thought at some point that, yeah, someday Margot will find some people who Get It and that'll help. Thank you to everybody who's put in so much work, emotional and otherwise, making this that kind of place.
posted by Sequence at 4:53 PM on December 12, 2017 [12 favorites]

We have cats.


Congratulations SPCP!
posted by arcticseal at 4:32 AM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I’m thankful for the story, and thankful for the excellent MeFi thread. Like, 80% of this story would have gone completely over my head if not for the thoughtful discussion on MetaFilter.
posted by The Toad at 7:56 AM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

I get why you want to hear those stories WCityMike. Just for a sanity-check: yes, I personally know many good, non-awful men. One lives in my house! Some of them are on this very website... they're in our towns and cities, walking freely among us. (I'm joking a little here, but the point is, if you're a man aiming to be non-awful, take heart, yes it can be done, by normal mortals with regular lives.) BUT -- this thread isn't the place to solicit reassuring stories about men, or to debate that, etc.

Instead it's a thread about Mefi's own Sock Person Cat Puppet, and we should be celebrating her fabulous story and acclaim.

Congratulations Sock Person Cat Puppet! Hometown-website writer makes good!
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 6:21 PM on December 13, 2017 [30 favorites]

Well done, Sock Person Cat Puppet! This was such a brave, risk-taking piece of honest writing. Salutations!
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 11:50 AM on December 15, 2017 [1 favorite]

I just wish there were more positive stories nowadays, too. Stories where women speak of the men that treat them like a cherished, loving partner -- stories and testimonials where men are neither abuser nor passive-aggressive Internet white knight.

As a woman, I'd also like there to be more of these stories--but that requires there to be more material to work with first.

Congratulations to SPCP. This is an incredible thing!
posted by Anonymous at 12:04 PM on December 15, 2017

Stories where women speak of the men that treat them like a cherished, loving partner -- stories and testimonials where men are neither abuser nor passive-aggressive Internet white knight.


Welcome to the billion-dollar Romance industry, which is completely invisible and doesn't count because women like it and we can't have that! Check out a blog like Smart Bitches Trashy Books and check out some reviews and buy some books! Many of them are less than $3 and even the expensive ones are routinely on sale.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:32 PM on December 15, 2017 [11 favorites]

Lyn Never, I just had a very similar train of thought. Yeah, there should be more of those stories, modeling for men a less shitty way to be... oh yeah, there are shitloads of stories modeling those types of men... but they're by and "for women" and men don't read them.

And congrats SPCP. Such evocative writing in a simple-seeming package. I had Robert's number from the line "You’re getting better at your job,” he told her. “You managed not to insult me this time.” It so perfectly encompasses the stew of condescending, passive-aggressive, gaslighting, negging misogyny of which so many Roberts seem to be made.
posted by catatethebird at 3:36 PM on December 15, 2017 [13 favorites]

Ever since I read this story, I feel slightly exposed. I'm not exactly like Margot, far from it, but it rang so true that it knocked me on my ass.

I have no idea how this Cat Person author got wedged inside my brain, or why.
posted by gatorae at 7:34 PM on December 15, 2017 [14 favorites]

thank you so much for the fabulous short story, SPCP - I've shared it as much as humanly possible. I hope it's in American Lit curriculum some day - i.e. to represent the turning point for women's rights and the national dialogue around consent.
posted by Dressed to Kill at 11:54 AM on December 16, 2017 [1 favorite]

Thanks to MetaFilter I’ve had this story on my mental to-read list since it was published. So when I had an unexpected hour of nothing in the midst of December chaos I sat down to read it. I have to say it's rare when a story I've been excited to read for this long lives up to expectations and then some. What a well-constructed gem of a tale, Sock Puppet Cat Person!
posted by Kattullus at 4:44 AM on December 20, 2017

Hey hey hey: SPCP has hit the jackpot!

https://www.thecut.com/2017/12/cat-person-writer-scores-7-figure-book-deal.html

Congratulations! Very well deserved indeed.
posted by GrammarMoses at 12:26 PM on December 20, 2017 [10 favorites]

Holy crap, that is awesome!
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 12:38 PM on December 20, 2017

Wow! Congratulations!
posted by rtha at 12:47 PM on December 20, 2017

Was coming here to post that. Get that money SPCP!
posted by k8t at 2:33 PM on December 21, 2017

Looking forward to a cross over interview on Out Of The Blue.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:54 AM on December 23, 2017