Monday 26 November 2012

Oh, Thought Catalog, I might have to quit you.


Sigh.

I am no longer in my 20s. I’m in my very early 30s. For the most part, I’m ok with this. I really am. I like my 30s so far. I have a much better understanding of who I am and what I want from life. It’s a big improvement over the crazytown that I was for most of my 20s. Let’s be honest, I still have many crazytown moments, but they are far less in scale compared to my 20s.



These are all good things.

This isn’t really a post about that, though.

This is a post about Thought Catalog. I adore Thought Catalog. Sometimes it feels like their posts come straight from inside my brain. I’d love to write for them because I think the content they are producing is fantastic! But lately, I’m not feeling it so much. Sometimes their brilliance makes me want to sob. Check out this post on ‘Game of Thrones Love’. I mean, this is the stuff I think about. A lot.

But more often than not there’s a post about a 20 something problem. About ten of these posts a day. I am again, only in my very early 30s (ok, I’m 31!) but these posts annoy me to no end. Not because they aren’t well written (though sometimes they aren’t, which breaks my heart a little) but because of the sheer volume of them. Yes, Thought Catalog is for the young, hip and terminally cool (it’s a disease, trust me). But it’s also for people who like to think, to have their brains expanded with wonderfully written posts. Lately, its turned into the graveyard for all things 20 something. Which is reading to me a lot like Cosmo or The Catcher in the Rye. Great in small doses, but you can OD on it quickly.

So, I guess you can call this my open letter to Thought Catalog.


I have loved you since before you were cool. Before everyone read you. Before you decided to publish ebook only collections of your articles (I have questions about how that works actually, who gets royalties, what content goes into those books, etc, but that’s probably for another post). My love affair with you has been long and distinguished. But the bloom is off the rose now, my darling. You are firmly entering hipster middle age. I don’t want to part from you, but I find myself yearning for something new. Something that remembers I exist. Something that wants me to keep reading it. Something that doesn’t act as if your 30s is a decade to ignore (heaven forbid 40s). I miss your cocky swagger. I miss when you used to write posts that got inside my brain and made me think, made me look at life and smile, laugh or get a bit misty eyed. I miss when you dazzled me with your brilliance. I miss when you were a site that spanned all decades and didn’t just focus on one. In short, I miss when you used to have my number and called me up late at night, not just for a drunken booty call, but for a soul to soul chat on my roof under the stars. I miss you.

But I’m a woman in my 30s. I don’t do relationships that are one sided. I learned that from three of your ‘Men not to date in your 20s’ posts. The other six posts on this topic I shamefully must admit I ignored. Did I miss something? Please do tell me, oh wise and wonderful font of all things 20 something.  

I won’t write you off entirely, my darling dearest, but I will be taking a step back from you. Let’s call this an open relationship. I might cuddle with Good.is sometimes. I might occasionally look to Jezebel.com for insight. But I don’t want to quit you.

Please don’t make me quit you.

Yours always,
Genn 

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