Emily Gould Proves Hannah Definitely Wouldn’t Have Gotten that Job
Disagreement continues to rage about whether Hannah would or wouldn’t have gotten that fantasy job teaching about “the internet” at an upstate university on Girls. Kathryn VanArendonk wrote in New York, “This job is impossible. It’s not just unlikely; it would almost never happen.” Jia Tolentino mentioned it in passing in a longer piece about finally beginning to watch Girls after putting it off for years (possibly solely for the purpose of writing this essay?) essentially taking the, ‘who cares how realistic it is, it’s just a TV show, please get a life’ position. But now, we’ve gotten an unexpected actual reality check from Brooklyn writer Emily Gould. She has been telling an infuriating, ongoing story on Twitter about how she applied for a very similar job, and not only didn’t get it, but received some offensive advice from the heterosexual man handling her application: go get an MFA.
Gould is immensely more qualified than Hannah Horvath. A former editor of Gawker, she essentially invented mass market confessional blogging, which led to a famous New York Times Magazine cover profile, sizable book advance, two novels, and her own publishing company. I’m a little behind on Girls, but I think Hannah freelances sometimes? This doesn’t have nearly the cachet it did in 2008, when people like Chandra from Hamden, CT wrote into the Times following that cover story to lament about Gould “dishing exuberantly about her personal life on the Internet,” which at the time was honestly pretty novel!
So, what happened when Gould tried to get a job teaching upstate, something she is in fact already doing here in the city?
jk, just got an email saying adjuct positions were booked for the “forseeable future” and asking if I’d ever considered getting an M.F.A.
— Emily Gould (@EmilyGould) April 13, 2017
were you wondering whether it was a heterosexual man who sent that email? guess what: it was
— Emily Gould (@EmilyGould) April 13, 2017
sorry to tweet several times about this but please believe it is nothing compared to what’s going on behind the scenes in my brain
— Emily Gould (@EmilyGould) April 13, 2017
in fact I’d keep tweeting about it but I have to go prepare to TEACH A MOTHERFUCKING WRITING WORKSHOP TONIGHT
— Emily Gould (@EmilyGould) April 13, 2017
So this is the email pic.twitter.com/oW766G0Hyl
— Emily Gould (@EmilyGould) April 14, 2017
and to clarify, this is not at a prestigious program– I am currently teaching at a much better one (Columbia)?!
— Emily Gould (@EmilyGould) April 14, 2017
(while awake at 2:30 AM) I thought of that one, and also, “As a question, though, would you have sent this email to a man?” http://t.co/jyrkKlrUl6
— Emily Gould (@EmilyGould) April 14, 2017
We reached out to Gould to ask if she would like to name the man behind this email, or even his program. She replied, “Oh geez, I’d better not.”