thank you for sharing and for your support as ever simon!

It's hardly the least of her offences here, but it does just court this influencer image that a lot of writers want to project that I'm sure she'd be eager to deny (funny enough, it's an event style that is increasingly common amongst BookTokers!)

Gratuitously sharing this piece I wrote in 2021 about this exact thing! The lack of accountability while making your entire brand – and it is a brand – anti-capitalist anti-colonialist leftism does feel beyond the pale at this point www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

I do think he is ultimately super insecure about his status as a podcaster and always looking for new ways to validate his success via traditional channels (imo one part of why he does Dragon's Den) - but indeed, I don't think they will! Realistically he's not even going to ask any good questions!!

Was talking about this with a friend last night, but the choice to do this with someone with dedicated stans does sort of suggest (rightly) a lack of confidence in the concept

A few years ago I got asked to review Molly Mae’s book and this is exactly why I said no - like a) who thinks this is going to be good? and b) what is the purpose other than to provoke her fans/to give her haters a moment to self-congratulate? It’s not criticism, it’s content

Thanks so much man!

It’s also going to be published by One Signal (Simon & Schuster) in the US, and so far has also been sold to Peninsula in Spain. Truly over the moon and if you’re a therapist - call me!

thanks man!!

Some of the replies to this are evidence of what I mean

IMO there seems to be an obsessiveness here vs the other place where you get one-off weirdos saying something annoying but ignorable, but here it’ll be someone sending you their thirteenth reply to the same post - where often they aren’t even necessarily disagreeing with what you’re saying

A lot of women I know have noticed it in the last year and I do wonder if there's something to be written about how messy that's gotten more acutely in the wake of Trump's re-election as the left tries to reckon with how to bring people back (or over for the first time). If you're an editor etc etc

10000% and completely agree on your last point – it's unhelpful as well as being reductive/patronising/etc

There's something bad happening atm where people see the answer to "we need to understand what's happening to young men/more generally people on the right" as "let's appease and capitulate" and avoiding reality. And stuff like this ultimately just serves to obfuscate the whole situation further