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You are reading the life, times, and general musings of Jenna Tollerson. I am an independent web developer living in and around Athens, Georgia, USA. [read more]
Today, in an in-class discussion on why we as readers like autobiographies, (why do we care? why does the author choose this as a subject?), I brought in the idea that reading someone else's true story, while many things, is largely voyeuristic.
“We just love to see what is going on in other people's lives. To catch a glimpse of that which we wouldn't normally see.”
I mentioned that I have a website where I tell my stories about my life, “which for some reason, evvvverybody reads, even though I don't think I'm that fascinating—”
My hilarious and well-mannered Comparitive Lit teacher cut me off, laughing, “—and yet you put it on the web!“
This whole exchange is priceless for two reasons: first, Jenna Tollerson actually stating that she doesn't find herself fascinating is a flat-out lie, and nothing more than an excercise in modesty for the sake of appearing humble. Of course I find myself fascinating; just here (not even counting things scrawled in notebooks or things typed but never published) I have nearly four years of exhaustive self-reflection, analysis and storytelling where the central and most important subject is me. I've written exhaustively on Jenna Tollerson; here is normally where I would pick an entry to make a self-referencial link to but how could you pick just one. I mean really.
The second reason this is so funny is whenever I bring the site up, especially in a group setting where not many people actually know me (such as a class, the perfect example for the point I'm trying to make), I always feel like a corporate whore for jennatollerson.com, like the confederate in a focus group, or even more apt, like some really obvious paid-for product placement in a blockbuster movie. You're supposed to pretend it's not advertising, but everyone watching gets the feeling they are being marketed to. The only way I could feel more like a walking advertisement is if I had written the URL on the board and instructed everyone to go there as there was a potential they could win fabulous prizes just for visiting!
Of course, the idea of my writing as a marketable product is only another demonstration of how great I believe I really am; if it wasn't for my inability to perform at all well academically, I might become overconfident and turn into a big jerk. So thank goodness for the hell that is University, eh?
You are reading the life, times, and general musings of Jenna Tollerson. I am an independent web developer living in and around Athens, Georgia, USA. [read more]
