By now, I'm sure many of you have had a chance to read the 70,000 word essay in this past week's New York Times Magazine by former Gawker editor Emily Gould. For those who haven't, HOW DARE YOU? At any rate, her essay recounts her tumultuous time at Gawker where she was paid solid money to systematically humiliate anybody she felt deserving of such an attack, which was pretty much everybody.

But alas, according to Gould, making fun of people had its downside: Men wanted to sleep with her! So she slept with them and blogged about it and now, at the wizened age of 26, she realizes what a tragic mistake it all was. She says she wishes she never revealed so much about her personal life to the blogosphere. That's why she wrote 70,000 words about the whole ordeal in the New York Times Magazine.

Seems a totally reasonable thing to do.

The backlash from her article has (surprise-surprise) been pretty harsh. Not many people have anything nice to say about Gould. Gawker posted like crazy about the essay, trying to find some way to rise above it all, while also ripping her a new one. Rachel Sklar at HuffPo called it an, "extended blog post...that did not venture beyond the author's own experience." Heck, Sydney Pollack went so far as to die of cancer just to screw with Gould's head.

Now that's old school.

As for me, well, I hate to admit it, but I found it an interesting read. A vapid, navel gazing read, but an interesting one nonetheless. That's not to say I think it's important or anything and worthy of gracing the COVER OF THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE. No, not at all. But it is a sort of snapshot of our time, one that I can even relate to, albeit distantly. So I give the Times a little props for at least attempting to feature something different.

In the end, though, I have very little sympathy for Gould's plight. I don't think the story is as emotionally complex as she makes it out to be. She was 25 years old and didn't know any better. Simple as that. Hate to get all "I'm older and no better!" on her, but yep, whatever. She's young and pretty and she got what she deserved: Resounding ridicule and a sexy pic on the cover of a famous magazine. All in all I'd say she's made out like a bandit.

This post is dedicated to Elliot Gould.