Culture of Disclosure: “Cat Person,” Women’s Writing Online and the Ambivalence of Vulnerability

Tura Vecino, A. (2022) Culture of Disclosure: “Cat Person,” Women’s Writing Online and the Ambivalence of Vulnerability. Politics of Vulnerability in Contemporary Women’s Writing and Creative Practices, London, UK, 19-20 May 2022.

Abstract

Last year, Kirsten Roupenian’s “Cat Person” stirred the Internet (for the second time) after Alexis Nowicki claimed in a Slate article that the story drew specific details from her life. The content and nature of the discussions this claim generated recalled that of the ones which originally fuelled the viral spread of “Cat Person” in 2017, when many readers confused the piece with a personal essay about a common yet hard to name form of sexual aggression. This paper uses the “Cat Person” phenomena to illustrate how social media promotes what I call a “culture of disclosure” which is changing both what gets read and how we read. Platforms like Facebook or Twitter both encourage and prize exposing and sharing individual histories and vulnerabilities, and literary (non-)fiction which takes the form or is liable of being read in that key has indisputably more chances of performing well in the digital sphere. I argue that this shift has benefited women, who have found in the “culture of disclosure” spaces to share their experiences of oppression —through fiction, nonfiction or other literary modes— and construct collective social movements such as #MeToo in doing so. Yet, I also propose that in the age of Cambridge Analytica and surveillance capitalism we need to be aware of the way in which our vulnerabilities are precious commodities coveted by increasingly powerful corporations eager to know and control our innermost desires.

• Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Tura Vecino, Dr Aleix
• Authors: Tura Vecino, A.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies
• Journal Name: Politics of Vulnerability in Contemporary Women’s Writing and Creative Practices

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