| Thank you. I had not previously heard of her. One reason my own blogging has so little traction is that I have long had a personal policy of trying to weed out and actively ditch the kinds of negative attention women so frequently attract online. I want attention on my work, not on me per se. I've spent a lot of years trying to sort out how to post good info without it going like it seems to have gone for her. Sure, she made good money, but at what price? She sounds like she was miserable the entire time and ultimately died by her own hand rather than being able to use financial success to resolve her problems. I'm resolving my problems. Maybe that means I'm too boring or something to ever be a commercially successful blogger or whatever. But it's a conscious choice and longstanding personal policy that my mental health and quality of life matter more than some kind of commercial success. And I personally feel that when someone so unable to effectively address their personal problems makes "most influential" lists, it's likely not a good thing overall for the health of the world as a whole. People who are so much drama tend to attract drama and promote drama without meaning to. They vent about a bad day and it ends up being some shitshow that comes back to bite them, not relief from their pain. I don't say that as criticism of her. I say that as firsthand experience. People often like me but expect me to be at my best at all times and few people are compassionate or supportive when I'm the one in need of support. A relationship to the public is not like private relationships and I think some people have trouble sorting that out and that fact can contribute to both popularity and an excess of negative and unwanted side effects accompanying their popularity. I'm sorry she suffered so much and ultimately killed herself. Ideally, the world uses this story as a means to find better answers -- though I'm not holding my breath, frankly. The world often actively promotes such patterns and seems to punish people for trying to sort their problems. A lot of people show up for the drama. It does something for them. And what it does to the author -- eh, "not my problem." |