Headline: “Cat person: The short story with no ending”
The New Yorker published the short story “Cat Person”, authored by Kristen Roupenian, last week. It tells the story of an encounter between two people, Margot and Robert. A man and a woman who we’re invited to follow as they first meet each other, after a long period of flirtatious conversations over a dating app. The story is told through Margot’s perspective and is, in short, about how she continues to date Robert, despite the fact that she finds him repulsive in real life.
In just a few days this short story has spread like wildfire. The response has not waited for itself – and the comments are wildly different from one another. Just to name a few examples that will be included in the feature; On a positive note, the story has been met by a wide spread sense of recognition from many women and is acknowledged like a well written piece of art. It has generated a number of additional articles containing other women’s previous experiences of “bad dates”. In contrast, the story has been exposed to a lot of criticism in the way the male lead character is portrayed. It has, for instance, been accused for body shaming.
There is no questions about it, the 7 000 word short story has raised a lot of discussions. These are just a few examples. Questions is, why has it become so popular? Or rather, so unpopular in some cases?
My angle will be “The short story that never ended, and why”. I will present the different sides of the discussion that has been taken place on mainly Twitter, as well as analysing why this short story has become so popular in this specific time. I will mainly do this by drawing parallels to the “Me too” campaign
The copy will include:
*Quotes from The guardian commenting on the short story
*Quotes from the author herself through The Telegraph
*The contrasts of the different responses including body shaming contra people sharing their own bad dating experiences.
*Analysis of why this short story has become so big, which also mean I will comment about the “Me too” campaign
The article will be a 300 word long curated feature, including my own analysis and responses from Twitter and other online sources. There will be at least 4 pictures of other tweets as well as at least 3 other images.
Kjellin journalism 