A Woman's Right to Write
on K.W. Bogen and writing publicly about pain
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If you’ve been on Threads in the last few weeks, you’ll know that the “Hot Chef” saga has come to an end. Writer, K.W. Bogen first posted about this sometime last year—she met a “hot chef” while traveling in Europe. The whirlwind romance ended with betrayal from said “hot chef.” I won’t get into all the gritty details (you can find them). Since the breakup, Bogen has been posting on Threads and writing on her Patreon about it. Because of her posts, people are now declaring her “insane,” “dangerous going into the mental health field,” and more. I’ve never seen so many mean girls talk shit about a woman posting about her pain. If she was writing about the death of a loved one, people would not be riding her this hard.
People are mad she has “rape money” (she refers to it as such since she received a settlement from school). People are mad she’s writing publicly about this “poor” man, who very much knew she had a following. People are mad she started monetizing her pain by writing about this on her Patreon. People are mad that she got more patrons because of this.
Look, being cheated on or even any type of betrayal CHANGES you. If I would have had Threads back in 2014 when my ex cheated on me (and gave me herpes), I would have gone absolutely feral on there. Women have the right to write about what shitty men have done to us. And yes, it’s going to be messy, “twee,” and cringe.
I don’t know Bogen. I’ve never read her book or her writing. I have no connection to her whatsoever. But lambasting her for how she is dealing with her breakup is too insane for me to not comment on. The dogpiling is too reminiscent of my own experience of being chewed up and spit out while running Guerrilla Feminism. It all just sounds like her ex-followers are mad that she posted about being super happy only for it to crash and burn. She is being accused of lying about her relationship because she only recently said she felt something was off. I fail to understand how this is “lying,” but whatever. People hated Bogen then and they hate her now. A bitch can’t win.
Whatever you put online is up for ridicule, of course, but what some people choose to hyperfocus on and denigrate doesn’t match the supposed “crime.” You can’t be upset with someone for then monetizing what happened to them. The only issue I have with monetizing one’s trauma is whether the person has thought it through beforehand. I wrote about this in my book under the chapter, “Trauma Storytelling as Currency & Commodity.” We don’t always have a choice. Capitalism has forced our hand at this. I wrote:
We’re all just trying to survive and most of us don’t have nearly enough money to do so. Our stories, the more heinous the better, make our Instagram posts seen more by followers and non-followers. We receive “hearts” for sharing the most painful things that have happened to us. We receive visibility, which can sometimes lead to national, or international, media attention. The proximity to fame and the promise of wealth can be intoxicating. On social media, our words and images are our currency and our morbid marketing tactics. Cue trauma storytelling.
Perhaps Bogen doesn’t need the money urgently like the rest of us, but it’s her right to monetize her shit.
From the same chapter, I wrote:
The issues of sharing “too much” or sharing compulsively, as well as feeling like we have to share trauma to get likes, follows, and perhaps a brand deal are rampant. I am concerned about this. I am concerned with becoming a spectacle. I am concerned with my lived experiences becoming commodified by others or myself. Trauma sells on websites and social media platforms, after all. This is dangerous if the writer has not even begun to process their trauma before deciding to write and sell a piece to a website or post about haphazardly on Instagram. As Dorothy Allison says, “You have to have found a way to live with your own story before you make a story you can give other people.”
I don’t always think it’s in the person’s best interest to share any and everything about a trauma with the internet sludge who are awaiting with bated breath their next victim. However, I will defend anyone who does it, because that is their choice to make. When you suffer any type of trauma, it is common to feel disoriented and without choice. Thus, choosing to write about it can be a way to gain some autonomy back.
Social media loves a “villain,” and this person can be completely innocuous, but hating the same person brings people together in a big way. The amount of times I have been told by complete strangers how terrible of a person I am is too many to count. People who are not in community with me think they know me based on my internet presence; this is what a parasocial relationship looks like. This is what people are doing to Bogen.
What is the end goal? What is the point? A woman has a right to write.
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this song:
Thank you for this post. As always, love your insights, and have also been thinking a lot about how I share my trauma, publicly and with people I know.
Our culture is so hungry for people's pain, and then so awful when women share it.