when does a canon event become content?

on personal writing made public

i’ve never moved on from anything in my life, only how to retell it. i experience everything, at minimum, in threes: the time when it happens, my recollection of it in private, my exploration of it in writing. i’ve never been able to master detachment, largely because i chose to pursue the craft of translation instead.

recollection is fickle. in a recent draft about adult friendships, i wrote, “the only thing more inconclusive than religion is memory. there was blood, but she only remembers the color red.”

a couple of years ago, i wrote for

how to be a woman on the internet

why to approach personal writing like it’s a rabid animal. there’s one thing to cage our emotions with our memories and another to let it out into the public. in the white album, joan didon wrote, “writers are always selling somebody out.” where i used to flinch from this truth, i’ve since made peace with it. what didon does beautifully is treat her writing preciously. bare-minimum, good writing demands craft as much as care. it’s not just about what you say, but how, when, and why.

author teresa jordan echoes this sentiment: “writers are users. we use the stories around us. i feel that carries a huge responsibility.” lorde’s writer in the dark is often (“bet you rue the day you kissed a writer in the dark / now she's gonna play and sing and lock you in her heart”) misinterpreted as vengeful, but i always interpreted it as sorrowful. she will always be the writer and the writer will always need a muse more than they need a lover.

it’s not always in the moment that i think, “this will become something else.” but i won’t lie and say there haven’t been events in my life—however joyful, minuscule, or traumatic ones—that clearly present themselves as portals to my work. when i was much younger, i flew hard and loose with the responsibility that jordan spoke of and contrary to didon, there was no one i sold out more than myself. now older, somewhat wiser, i have firmer boundaries for myself and the stories i tell.

the personal essay boom came and went in the mid 2010’s, then revived itself. it used to be more prestigious, and exploitative, to get a story published in a magazine or in a book. but with the rise of self-platforming, anyone can share their canon event. to poach from internet slang, which has been absorbed into everyday vernacular, a canon event refers to a significant moment in your life that shapes the totality of it.

but any canon event can become content. the creator ecosystem is both empowering and debilitating in that anyone can say anything without examination. content is everywhere for the eye to see: our platforms are judge, jury, and executioner. content is impersonal, even if it involves the most personal details of our lives.

an example of canon event turned into content is “west elm caleb” from a couple summers ago—a series of videos villainizing this man (caleb) who designed furniture for west elm. his crime was dating multiple women at the same time, as a man in his 20s is likely to do. but buzzwords like ‘narcissistic’ and ‘abusive’ gave unearned moral weight to the content. not every event is canon and not every canon needs to be platformed.

around the same time, child actor jennette mccurdy’s autobiography i’m glad my mom is dead was published to largely positive responses. what mccurdy had in spades that the west elm calebs of the world lacked is the gift of time, nuance, and intent.

even around a difficult topic, mccurdy wrote with care and empathy, both to herself and the relationship at large. if a personal essay is an animal, then a memoir is a beast. but works like mccurdy’s feel defined, whereas content often feels flat, like throwing word salad at the wall to see what sticks.

through the ghosts of my publishing regrets, i have this rule for myself that i can never write from a wound and platform it. our memories are the most unfaithful parts of ourselves. i can look at a person and depending on my mood of that day, i’ll remember them with tenderness or with ire. an insignificant slight from years ago can turn into a character assassination in a blink of an eye. there is never a true way to portray someone else, just merciful or cruel ones.

when i was seventeen, i rushed into talking about my sexual assault because i thought it would be cathartic. the more i wrote, the less it belonged to me. i would recycle phrases and descriptors (“survivors, not victims”) to package a narrative that felt right for the time.

it opened doors for me at the cost of inviting the world into my trauma. i don’t know if my rapist ever read a single word, but i felt displaced by my own rewriting of what happened. i wasn’t empowered or healed as i presented, but i thought i could write my way into being whole. writing can express a wish, but it shouldn’t be built on one.

one of my most favorite tidbits about issa rae is how open she is about regretting her book, “the misadventures of awkward black girl.” even with a team of editors and publicists, the art of personal writing is so delicate. rae is disarmingly charming, but even so, a throwaway line or unintended piece of snark can so easily become shrapnel.

if that doesn’t terrify the writer, i don’t want to read their work.

leslie jamison is the author of the empathy exams and talks about the challenges of writing about personal experiences involving others.