What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

To that big mouth author who claims their books make mad money, but they dress like they shop at Walmart.

seananmcguire:

authorlife:

image

What?  Why?

I don’t go around claiming that my books make mad money, but I definitely dress like I shop “at WalMart" (in my case, Target and Old Navy) unless I have a special event like the Hugos.  This is how I grew up.  Hell, this is nicer than how I grew up.  And I have other priorities for the money I do have.

I took my mother, who gave me my love of Disney, to Disney World.  I couldn’t have done that if I’d been buying five hundred dollar purses.  I helped a friend repair their car’s engine, and it was a gift, not a loan, because I was able to do that without adding the strain of “pay me back" to our friendship.  I couldn’t have done that if I’d been buying eighty dollar jeans.

Dress nicely and cleanly and in clothes without holes in them if you can because it will make you feel better, but don’t shame people for being more comfortable in the kind of clothes they grew up in, and for being happier using the money they have to make life easier and better for the people that they love.

Fucking COSIGNED. I do not dogdamn CARE how people dress, and the idea of doubting that an author really is talented or popular or whatever simply because they don’t meet your personal fucking standards for dressing well is not only classist and elitist as all fuck (because OBVIOUSLY only poor tacky unfortunates shop at stores like Wallmart! not SMART RICH POPULAR PEOPLE like us!), but, when paired with a gif that employs the word ‘bitch’ to make its point, has pretty strong undertones of sexism, too. Because ninety-nine times out of a hundred, when someone is passing judgement on the clothing choices of a public figure? That figure is a woman, because that is how sexism fucking works in society. 

I have a pretty hard time imagining ANYONE saying that a male author must not really be as successful as he claims because of how he’s dressed in old comfy jeans and a faded nerdy t-shirt, because not only is that an accepted variant on the geek uniform, but men aren’t fucking expected to spend all their money on clothes. And even the implied correlating claim, that female authors who dress really well are giving you the impression of being successful - because that’s what you’re really suggesting, here; that if someone doesn’t “look right” to you, you’re going to disregard their claims of talent, and if they do, you’re going to believe them - is part of the same troglodytic logic that says women HAVE TO wear makeup and heels and designer fucking clothes and spend hundreds of dollars on their hair and nails and accessories if they want to be taken seriously in the workplace, because otherwise they’re just letting themselves down. 

So FUCK YOU, person who made this post. FUCK. YOU. I earn pretty much nothing from my writing at present, but if there ever comes a point in my life when I can look at my bank statements and go, 'Hey! That’s pretty respectable!’ - or even if I were to somehow hit the authorial jackpot and write something that ends up on a bestseller list - you can take the fact that I’ll still be buying the bulk of my clothes from charity shops to the fucking BANK, because I DO NOT GIVE A FUCKING FUCK ABOUT POPULAR FASHION AND NEVER FUCKING WILL, AND CHANGING THAT FACT SHOULD NOT BE A FUCKING JOB REQUIREMENT IN ORDER FOR INDUSTRY FIGURES TO TAKE ME SERIOUSLY.

And do you know why? Because when I have spare money to spend on things for me? I spend it on music and movies and food and things that actually make me happy - but most of all, I spend that money on books, because THAT IS HOW I ROLL, and FUCK YOU FOR TRYING TO SHAME ME FOR IT

(via seananmcguire)

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