Modern Romance - Aziz Ansari (with Eric Klinenberg) (2015)

Do I really need to write a review of this book?
Haven't you already seen the reviews, like five months ago?
This is actually one of the few books that most lay people (i.e. non-readers) of a certain age know.
They know it because they know Aziz Ansari, and it's about dating, and he's right: it's both a wonderful and horrible time to be single.
This book is candy to Penguin Press.

Do I need to parrot the ideas of this book or can I just write this as a special comment on Tinder?

I always try to "personalize" these reviews so they're more valuable than the "objective" stuff you'll find in any number of major newspaper markets across the country.  But this is a real opportunity for extreme personalization, and I don't want to go there.  I will start off with a pertinent quote, so you know what to expect:

"One thing that I definitely want you to know up front is that this book is primarily about heterosexual relationships.  Early in the process Eric and I realized that if we tried to write about how all the different aspects of romance we address applied to LGBT relationships, we simply wouldn't be able to do the topic justice without writing an entirely separate book.  We do cover some issues relating to love and romance among gays and lesbians, but not at all exhaustively." (8-9)

Because of this, while I initially flirted with the idea of putting this on the "best books" list, it fails.  I'm not that strident of an activist so I really don't care to start a fuss over the idea that LGBT relationships are different from straight ones, but I will comment briefly that a law school classmate of mine wrote a law review article about domestic violence in LGBT relationships and found that there wasn't much of a difference (I mean, obviously, in straight ones it's usually the dude doing the hitting, I'm guessing).  I do think gay dudes are way less picky when it comes to sex partners, in general.  That's about all I can say, though.  I'm not too angry, because I do think there should be a book about dating for bi people.  I just think it's a little troubling, economically, particularly when that big SCOTUS decision came down just as this book was released (June 16, 2015).  Straight people wouldn't be interested in reading about non-straight people, I guess.

What would a book about dating for bi people be like?  It would be the most fucked up thing in the world.  Do you disclose, or do you pretend?  Do you delete all your old Facebook references to anything that might give a potential date the idea that you had never strayed from the straight and narrow?  I really don't think there is any problem whatsoever for a bi dude to tell a same-sex partner that he likes girls--I think they're more excited by the idea of a straight dude than a gay one (at least for a casual thing)--but does that work on the opposite level for girls?  I mean, of course, girls don't want to go out with bi dudes, but are lesbians open to going out with bi girls?  Frankly, if Mr. Ansari would like to entrust such a project to a fellow '05 NYU Alum, I will rip up my law license and skip down the street.

I've been a little bit harsh in starting off this review, so let's move onto the positives: this is probably the funniest book I have reviewed on Flying Houses.  I laughed out loud while reading it more than a few times, and on the CTA that was sometimes embarrassing.  I think this was the line, yesterday:

"I'd run the Hardee's and probably be pretty good at it.  Maybe I'd catch wind of a guy who was running a huge 'biscuit extortion' scam to smuggle biscuits across the border to Georgia [from South Carolina].  The scam would work like this: The guy and his partner would steal biscuits from our store and then sell the stolen biscuits at a lower cost on the biscuit black market.  After getting suspicious of his frequent trips to Georgia, I would hide in the bed of a Ford F-150, under a bunch of biscuits, and when they reached their destination, I'd dramatically pop up and go, 'GIMME BACK MY BISCUITS!'
The family would be proud." (237)

It's not even that funny, really, but the image cracked me up.

Upon further review, it was actually this passage that made me laugh to embarrassment:

"My Dearest Charles,
I hope this letter finds you in the halest and heartiest of conditions.  I'm sure it will, as your constitution, as I recall, was always most impressive for its resilience and fortitude.
What do you make of this so-called 'Revolution'?  I fear that, win or lose, we shall be feeling its reverberations for decades to come.
In other news, in addition to your sister, I am fucking Tina, this woman I met at the bar last week.  I also caught syphilis from a prostitute I met in Boston.
Fondly, your brother-in-law,
Henry" (225)

Is Mr. Ansari a good writer?  I think so.  It's unclear to me how much of this book is written by him and how much is written by Klinenberg, but it feels like it's mostly Ansari, even when there's not a joke being thrown in every few sentences.

The constant jokes aren't a distraction.  Instead, they change the book into something different entirely.  Now I know that comedians get book deals, and sometimes their books are funny, but this is more impressive because it's about something else, something that most younger people might want to know.

The problem is that we all already know.  There is some interesting research that the book brings out, but all of the perceptions, all of the subjective stuff, we know.  We know about not texting back immediately for fear of seeming too desperate.  We know about selecting profile pictures.  There is a lot of stuff "we" know, but we don't really know that other people feel it too, and I guess that's why this book is nice.  Ansari is never mean-spirited with the jokes here, and that's impressive in this arena.  It also has the potential to get extremely raunchy, but the dirty stuff is kept relatively safe.

The central thesis, if you will, is that "good enough" partners are not good enough for people anymore.  We now require a soul mate.  Along the way in that search, we might discard some really amazing people, and Ansari advocates on behalf of "quality" rather than "quantity."  It's better to get to know a person really well and find out everything that's great about them, rather than to meet a lot of people and only get to know them superficially before deciding there's someone better for you.

This is kind of the romantic issue of our time, and Ansari is clever to seize upon the moment and call it out for what it is.  Thousands of people have written about these issues over the past half-decade, but Ansari is the first to turn it into a book with mass appeal.  And he is the right person to do it because the humor complements the material in a strange way.  In a sense, it almost detracts from the material, but this turns it into a strength.

Perhaps this sounds strange.  Really what I mean is, you can't take a book with this subject matter all that seriously.  You're not supposed to.  Ansari isn't saying WE ARE ALL LIKE THIS; he's just sharing stories that he heard in focus groups and surveys and sociological studies.  He also writes about his own romantic travails to powerful effect, though I contend that he leaves an important element of dating/mating out: money.

Maybe I'm cynical, okay, but we can't all go out every weekend night and spend 5 hours in a bar or club and spend $200 on drinks.  And when we think about who would be a good partner, tell me nobody cares about their job.  Of course, many more women pursue a professional career than in the past, and marriage has become a kind of status symbol--more of a "power couple" thing than the traditional "sole breadwinner" thing.  I would have liked to hear more about stay-at-home dads.

Ansari effectively describes the shift in marriage habits, from our grandparents' and parents' generations to ours.  Perhaps this is why I often said I wished I was 10 years older, back in '01 and '02.  But maybe it's more like 20 or 30 years older.  The difference is, the older generations did not have the experience that we do of "emerging adulthood," the period between, say, 23-30, when we pretty much live on our own and seek a mate that is most complementary to our vision of a worthwhile existence.  Ansari thinks this period is a great thing, more or less, but personally I'm not sure.  Now, I have no problem with their being tons of single people getting older and not having kids--so long as we're not lonely.  But I do have a problem when I am 32 and I look around and see that most people my age are married, or engaged, or have kids, or have a good job with a retirement plan, and I have nothing.  I guess it would hurt a lot more 20 years ago to be in the same situation at my age, but my belief is, it wouldn't be this way 20 years ago.  But I should shut up before I say something dumb and insensitive.

There are some really intriguing parts, particularly about Japan and the way their government is responding to the low-birth-rate crisis by subsidizing singles' parties.  And of course there are some priceless stories:

"Back in June of 2012 when I was 43, my boyfriend broke up w/ me via a text message after being together for 8 years!  I practically raised his daughter, and had been totally committed to him [and] everything that came w/ him.  I was really offended and hurt as I felt that I at least deserved to be broken up with in person or at least on the phone! 
Apparently the wound didn't run too deep, though, because look what happened next:
After 10 months of no contact, his uncle passed away [and] I called him [and] left a message w/ my condolences.  We finally talked after that [and] eventually got back together.  I still love him completely [and] have forgive him for how things went down.  And you best believe I gave him hell for that text! :-)
No offense, but at this point let's take a moment to be thankful we are neither of the people in that relationship." (194)

I could go on, and on and on about this book and excerpt every single great joke, but I'm gonna wrap things up here.  I just can't resist putting in my favorite part, which is where Ansari advocates for monster truck rallies as ideal venues for first dates:

"One of the social scientists I consulted for this book is the Stanford sociologist Robb Willer.  Willer said that he had several friends who had taken dates to a monster truck rally.  If you aren't familiar with monster truck rallies, basically these giant-ass trucks, with names like Skull Crusher and The ReJEWvinator,* ride up huge dirt hills and do crazy jumps.  Sometimes they fly over a bunch of smaller cars or even school buses.  Even more nuts, sometimes those trucks assemble into a giant robot truck that literally eats cars.  Not joking.  It's called Truckzilla and it's worth looking into.  Frankly, it sounds cool as shit, and I'm looking at tickets for the next one I can attend. (140)
"*Okay, I made up ReJEWvinator, but it would be cool if there were a Jewish monster truck scene." (141)

The book also ends on a really sweet story about a couple meeting and how they left notes to each other on the doors of their apartment complex.

This isn't necessarily "required reading," but I wouldn't be surprised to hear about this book being passed around between groups of friends in "emerging adulthood."  That is the way the most culturally relevant books attain their cache.  This is increasingly rare, and I applaud Ansari for rejuvenating the medium.

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress #18: Doppelgangers

In this column, I attempted to illustrate the difficulty of self-definition in the law school and job search context.  While I feared a backlash from this piece, fortunately there was none.  It would be quite easy for people to make fun of me on the basis of the idea that I am incapable of remembering names because people's appearances tend to blend together in this atmosphere.  However, perhaps a general sense of agreement with the ideas herein are present: in certain instances, it is simply better to avoid social contact than to invite social awkwardness.  In general it is better to be a social person - I think most people will agree with that - but there is a danger of being too social, as well, that may tend to rub people the wrong way.  Everybody knows that time is at a premium, and that sensitivity to wasting another person's time is useful in the development of social tact.  Regardless, the column is simply about my desire to allow people to "be themselves."

NIED #18: Doppelgangers

                One of my least favorite things about law school is seeing people that I know, but not being able to say hi to them because it’s weird since we have not both formally acknowledged that we know each other’s first names.  Even worse is when someone says hi to me and I have absolutely no idea who they are, but I want to be polite, so I say hi back, but don’t say their name, and then worry about whether or not they know that I don’t know their name.  Some might say this is a trivial matter, but I believe that Doppelgangers present a strong case for a claim for Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress. 

                In the first place, these Doppelgangers—they owe me no duty to make me feel better about myself.  So the claim fails.  However, I do not intend for every NIED column to present a colorable claim—I merely intend to contribute a voice of reason into this sea of Sameness.

                My friend dyed my hair blonde last year.  A couple weeks after that, I set up an interview for a judicial internship with a bankruptcy judge nearby.  My counselor told me that I needed to dye my hair back.  Another counselor indicated that it would not be a good idea to go to the PILC Fair with the blonde. 

                I also started my internship that semester with the blonde, and when I dyed it back, my supervising attorney thought it had been my natural color.  His wife, ironically, told me that she met Andy Warhol at a party in the early 1980s.  They had both approved of my hair.

                While blonde, I came upon a brilliant realization: I could never dye it back.  It would make me stand out.  Of course, others might say it would make me stick out like a sore thumb.

                I told people that I needed to be “diverse” somehow.  I told people that it was some kind of impossible form of discrimination to judge my intelligence on the basis of my hair color—but of course, hair color is not immutable.  This much is certain, however: people knew who I was.  I was “that blonde kid” and subject to whatever criticisms or praise that appellation entailed.  I was immediately identifiable.  Then I dyed it back to brown and I receded back into the ooze of professional appearances and anonymity.   

                Many people at this school (and I would imagine every single other law school) look exactly the same (but to qualify this statement, let me specify that BLS students probably do not look like UVM Law students).  And it is very annoying for me.  How am I supposed to know who you are if you look like five other people?  I might recognize your voice?  What if there is just that awkward moment of eye contact without any kind of wave or similar friendly gesture?  Then I go into the library and keep my head down—I do not want to see anyone anymore.  Blindness is preferable to any display of social awkwardness.  The blind cannot be faulted for their condition, but I can be faulted for not making an effort to know everyone’s name and for not being able to tell them apart from a distance when, perhaps I am not even wearing my glasses.  It is absurd. 

                My advice is contrary to what the Career Services Office will tell you, but I seriously believe that law school will suck the vitality out of you and turn you into a sheep if you let it.  So, do not cut your hair.  Do not dye it back to its original color.  Keep reading the Communist Manifesto.  Maintain your pre-law school hobbies to the extent practicable.  Read for pleasure.  Use your real name on facebook instead of trying to hide.  Keep at your blog. 

If you have ideas, share them.  If you don’t really care very much about your individuality, then I guess you won’t be offended the next time I look away.  But if you feel like law school is preventing you from being the person you want to be, I suggest you go into court one day.  There are always crazy lawyers with fantastic suits and bizarre piercings and atypical hairstyles.  People might say you shouldn’t look like that if you want to get hired—but I seriously doubt the judge will rule against you because of it. 

               

                

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress #17: Preemption

As previously promised, this is NIED column #17 on Preemption.  It is primarily intended to address preemption in the Law Review context--but truth be told I did not make it onto a Journal at our law school and so my analysis of the preemption concept may not square with the wisdom of such fortunate students.  However, preemption arises in other contexts, and the episode that this column describes is in fact true.  Nevertheless, at this point I have serious doubts that the friend of my friend was telling the truth when he said he was "really tired because he was out partying with Lindsay Lohan the night before."  I have heard stories of people that simply make things up on Facebook and claim they are friends with celebrities.  I have no patience for these types of persons and do not want anyone to consider me as being "on that level."  I like to think I give people the benefit of the doubt, but I do indeed have serious doubts that Ms. Lohan will be interested in a contract (paying perhaps $100) for the lead female role in Batman in Brooklyn.  Regardless, if she happens to come upon this post by some serendipitous act, I would be very interested indeed in discussing the project with her.  While my time and funding are at all-time lows, my creativity, I think, is at an all-time high.

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress No. 17: Pre-Emption

                I recently heard that a friend of a friend had been hanging out with Lindsay Lohan all night. A few days later, Lindsay Lohan was on the news, apparently the victim of an assault in a Manhattan hotel room. 

                Before the assault though, I told my friend, “Look.  Hynes is no longer able to be in Batman in Brooklyn.  It would have been exciting to have him, but we can’t.  But.  If we can get Lindsay Lohan. This film will be incredibly important.  It will be her comeback.  And it is made all the more perfect by my Parent Trap Redux (due about November 18, 2016) – which specifically abrogates the Parent Trap remake.  Give me five minutes with her and I guarantee I can get her to sign on.”

                Previously I had been formulating the idea for the opening shots of the film. It opens with a shot of the new World Trade Center and the Brooklyn Bridge, 50/50 in composition. There would be many more shots. Still shots. Landmarks around Brooklyn. There would need to be music in the background. I thought Dum Dum Girls would be appropriate. I thought “Jail La La” would be appropriate.

                A couple days after that, the assault occurred, and a news item on Pitchfork discussed a new film that Lohan will appear in. It is directed by Paul Schrader (screenwriter of Taxi Driver, director of a dozen other vaguely-acclaimed films) and written by Bret Easton Ellis (uber-hipster). The preview consists of still shots taken around Los Angeles while a Dum Dum Girls song plays in the background.

                I weep.

                I get into trouble when I write about journals, but I must comment upon Preemption.  Many students complain about not being able to write about the topic they want to write about. But there are many topics that occur to me.  They occur whenever I observe a phenomenon in real life (say, for example, psychiatrist liability post-Tarasoff with the “Batman in Aurora” incident as the intro).  They occur whenever I do research for an internship (say, for example, establishing a BAC threshold for marijuana DWIs).  They occur whenever I do my reading assignment for the next day (say, for example, that holographic wills should be admitted in more states).  They do not occur when I actively try to think of a good topic to write about (say, for example, the effect of the Affordable Care Act on Medicare spending).

News flash: I did not make a journal. I wrote a 40 page paper with 188 footnotes though. 

I saw one journal article that had 350 footnotes though. 

It wasn’t good enough for the open note competition. So I am revising it.

But I found, when I did my preemption check, that I was, essentially, pre-empted by two articles.  (Briefly, my article was on the Temporary Help Industry. It was extraordinarily ambitious, but the reason stated for its rejection was that its personal elements detracted from its legal analysis. Understandable.) One addressed unemployment benefits for temps, and the other was basically the same as my article except it was longer and didn’t contain the personal element (and I quoted from it liberally).

                And so we cannot write about that topic—or rather, we just have to “tweak” our topic so that it’s “original” but we may have to focus on a tangential issue that we don’t find as intriguing—because somebody else got there first.

                It is almost like in Manhattan when Woody Allen asks Michael Murphy why he deserves to go out with Diane Keaton.  Murphy says, “I liked her first,” to which Allen replies, “What are you, six years old?” It’s almost like the Great Journal Editors in the Sky are saying, “You couldn’t possibly do a better job, so you can’t write about the same thing.”

                The obvious analogue here is copyright law—but I will not purport to know anything about that since (due to my own great fault and misfortune) I have not been able to take that course.  But I know that it is not okay to steal someone else’s idea.

                I suppose that the rationale underlying preemption is that we do not want to encourage law students to write articles that have little hope of being published, because a journal would not want to publish a duplicative article.  But as far as I am concerned, so long as the article updates an old article, it should not be pre-empted (as indeed mine was not, written as it was in 2009, before the real effects of the financial crisis had been more clearly reflected in reality).

                Which leads to my final point: since the past 5 years have involved a significant social upheaval, preemption should not be a problem, because this “Great Depression Part Two” affected almost every sector of the economy and American life in general—to the point that articles taking stock of its aftermath should not be struck down by the Preemption Hammer.

                Unfortunately for me and Ms. Lohan, the film industry doesn’t even pretend to be fair.  If the legal industry at least wants to give the appearance of fairness, it needs to be changed from the bottom up, and that means journal reform—as vague as it may sound.  I may not make the same film I want to make due to pre-emption, but law students should not be pre-empted from writing the articles they want to write. 

                Christopher J. Knorps is a 3L at Brooklyn Law School.  He enjoys studying bankruptcy law.  He has been told not to be defensive about his failure to obtain journal membership, but he cannot stay quiet in the face of injustice—particularly when it rains down upon him.    

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress: Facebook Etiquette

I have recently become involved with the BLS Advocate. All readers should check out www.blsadvocate.org because they've got some pretty cool stuff up there (check out the classifieds). I proposed writing a weekly column entitled "Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress" about the various distresses inflicted upon law students by third parties. At bottom, I guess, all of these columns could have the bottom line of determining if there were a tort cause of action against the third party. The topic this time is Facebook Etiquette. So, I guess, Facebook is the third party. Could they be liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress? No way-unless the circumstances were exceptional. But could they be liable for negligent infliction of emotional distress? Probably not - just because, as my little intro points out, it's a tough case to make as it is...

I had to edit this down to 750 words for the BLS Advocate, but I present it to here, in its unedited full, 2,916 word glory:

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress: Facebook Etiquette
By Christopher J. Knorps
DISCLAIMER:
INTENTIONAL INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS
Restatement of Torts, Second, section 46: “One who by extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress to another is subject to liability for such emotional distress.”
Comment d:
“Liability has been found only where the conduct has been so outrageous in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community.”
NEGLIGENT INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS
“Almost all states have adopted the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress, but only a minority of courts have been willing to recognize an independent cause of action for emotional distress alone against defendants who are no more than negligent. (Shapo, Principles of Tort Law, 3d ed., 381)

BY READING THIS COLUMN, YOU HEREBY AGREE TO FORFEIT ALL POSSIBLE CLAIMS AGAINST THE AUTHOR

Introductory Note to First Column

First of all, let me say, it’s good to be back. This is my first piece of journalism written in a school-sanctioned medium in more than eight years. I have missed the opportunity to make my voice heard, and while there may be plentiful amounts of my own writing at flyinghouses.blogspot.com, that website hardly registers in the national consciousness. This is not to say that the BLS Advocate registers in the national consciousness, but it is at least a resource that other students can use to recognize that they are not alone.

This column is entitled Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress because it may cause that in the reader. To be sure, I have never shied away from writing about controversial topics, and I have often paid the price. I expect to get a fair amount of hate mail after every column I write – but my goal is to inspire thoughtful comments that can start a conversation about reasonable values that we can all share as law students. Given its ubiquity, I felt that facebook would be the best topic for my inaugural column.

The Incident Giving Rise to this Column

On February 1, 2012, I posted a two-and-a-half minute video that was recorded on February 1, 2004. This video was shot in my dorm room at the 13th St. residence hall of NYU. The video was shot very late in the evening and involved some eight people. I narrated that we had all gotten married. Many of us were drinking and/or smoking cigarettes. I was two-and-a-half months shy of my 21st birthday, and most of the people there were under 21. A close relative of mine was also there. I wrote, “Happy 8th Wedding Anniversary!” and included the names of the four people that I had been married to that evening. I posted this around 11:00 PM and went to bed.
Around 6:00 AM, my phone beeped twice – two text messages. Next, it started ringing. I let it go to voice-mail, heard that a voice-mail was left, heard the phone ring again, let it go to voice-mail again, heard that a voice-mail was left again, and finally got out of bed. I saw the texts were from my close relative. “Take it down,” was all I needed to see to know what was up. I powered the phone down. Then, consumed by guilt and unable to fall asleep, I turned on my computer, went to facebook, and untagged everyone from the video. Then I was able to fall back asleep.
But not for long. The first thing I did after waking up a couple hours later was to check my e-mail and facebook. I also listened to my voice-mails, found there were four, heard my close relative call me an “asshole” in one of them, heard my close relative’s significant other leave a message that was very measured and polite, and finally heard my close relative crying, apparently walking on her way to work, about the horrible thing I had done.
In an e-mail, another friend in the video sent me a polite explanation, saying that he was an employee of the federal government, and he had actually just had a meeting about these sorts of things, and how people should protect their reputation at all costs, most especially on facebook. His argument held more water to me – and I took it down. My close relative continued to text me. I told her she had little reason to fear disciplinary action. She said she didn’t fear disciplinary action, but she took my lack of concern to be an affront to the reputation that she had worked very hard to build and maintain as a 27-year-old female in her workplace. I wrote, relax, it’s gone. I wanted to add, you can take that stick out of your ass now, but did not want to cause any greater ire.

Perhaps it is worth noting that another person in the video, a PHD candidate, did not object whatsoever, but rather commented on it nostalgically, saying it was a perfect representation of her college experience.

Perhaps it is also worth noting that this same close relative saw what I had written on my younger sister’s facebook wall. My younger sister is seventeen years old. She is waiting to hear back from University of Chicago. She is very smart and will probably be very successful in her career, perhaps because I had to move back home in 2008, and lived with her for two years, and was able to give her a fair amount of good advice. But I digress. The controversial post was a joke, sort of. We had gotten into the habit of playing Mario Party 8 on Wii. For those unfamiliar, Mario Party 8 is a game where you can have up to four players. You pick a character (Mario, Luigi, Toad, Toadette, Yoshi, Peach, Boo, Daisy, Dry Bones, Wario, Waluigi, Hammer Bro, Birdo, or Blooper), you pick a board (Tycoon Town being one of my personal favorites—as the strategy involves investing coins in hotels and gaining equity that determines how many stars you are entitled to and carrying as little cash as possible, so that when you have zero coins and land on a red space, and are supposed to lose three coins, you lose nothing –we shout “discharge!” when that happens and it is fun for all), and you pick how many turns you will play. Each turn ends with a mini-game, which takes about two minutes or so. The goal of the game is to get as many stars as possible. It is one of the best games for a real party and if anyone has a copy and wants me to play I will gladly put off writing my paper for Employment Law a few hours longer and play as many turns as you like. Moving on…we had gotten into the habit of playing 50-turn-games of Mario Party 8 – my younger sister, my younger brother, and me. I wrote a message to the effect that, we were reserving the television on December 23, 2011 from 6 PM – 1 AM for two, back-to-back 50-turn games of Mario Party, and that I would supply the adderall. When my father returned from the airport with my close relative in tow, he took me aside into his office and said, “Take all that stuff down! Don’t you realize that it is a violation of federal law to hand out prescription drugs? You are seriously jeopardizing your career by putting up crap like that!”

This prompted a response on my status a couple days later, to the effect that, people should realize that what I write on facebook is not meant to be taken seriously. Approximately half of the time, I am joking. Before you judge me based on what I write, please ask me what I meant. Context is everything.

With that long preamble in mind, I will now address the role of facebook in the typical law student’s life.

History

Before there was facebook, there was Friendster, and before there was Friendster, there was myspace, and before there was myspace there was…..nothing? Hardly. Before myspace there were chat rooms and dating sites – social networking in its infancy – and perhaps another brief story (this one truly brief, I promise) will be illustrative.

It was 1996. We had just gotten America Online installed on our home computer. I had gone on chat rooms with other friends before, but now I could do it on my own. I thought I had to pick a cool name. I looked at my shoes. Nike. Nike is kind of cool, but too obvious. How about I substitute a D for the N, and add the year? Sounds great! So, Dike96 became my screen name. When my parents found out about this, they were quite upset. It prompted this conversation with my mother: “Mom, what does Dike mean?” (It is worth noting here that there are two definitions of the word—and actually, with the spelling I used, mine was the more innocent of the two—but the internet has never been a place where double entendres are ignored). “It’s a derogatory term for a female homosexual,” she said. My parents were quite concerned that I would go into chat rooms with such a screen name and become an inevitable target for online predators – arguably still something of an obscurity in those days. The screen name was deleted, and when I got my own computer in December 1997, I started going by jckchicago on AIM.

What does this story illustrate? I don’t know. I joined Friendster and myspace sometime in 2003, and I joined facebook in early 2004. I like to think of myself as something of an “original” member who has held fast through the years and changes, and who has never compromised his artistic integrity by censoring anything he has posted (with the exception of using ****** to fill in swear words). People tell me I’m hard to find on facebook. This helps me feel less vulnerable. That I have two different names, which is confusing, is another factor that helps me feel safer than others when posting questionable content.

Law School and Facebook

In law school, you will go to events held by the career services center. They will tell you take anything that is even the least bit questionable off of your wall, and out of your photos or videos. They will tell you that it is not worth it to risk losing what is probably the most important job search of your life by leaving up some stupid picture of coughing out an ocean of smoke after a massive bong rip. The picture may be funny – yes – but it will automatically disqualify you for consideration for any job – especially one where they require a drug test (note here: USPS interns are required to take a drug test – you’ve been warned). It is monumentally stupid to allow anything that could potentially result in a reputational compromise to be seen by anyone, especially those in charge of hiring at a firm.

But what if no one actually searches facebook to spy on your profile? What if they can’t see your profile unless you accept them as a friend? I think most people are aware they can change certain privacy settings to avoid these kinds of situations from happening at all.

Moreover, what if no one wants to search facebook for your profile? What if you’re not the sharpest tool in the NYC Legal Market and you’re not going to be considered for any jobs, period? Then, what’s the big deal? Is the NYPD or District Attorney’s office going to search your profile, see some picture that may be probable cause for a warrant for possession of marijuana, and bring formal charges against you? No! Is your goofy younger brother going to think a joke about taking amphetamines to have the fortitude to make it through 100 turns of Mario Party is funny? Yes!

Maybe it’s worth noting that my friend count on facebook used to match my LSAT score, and my weight (somewhere in the low-to-mid 160s) and is now, two years later, up to 433. Obviously, being in school when you are on facebook can have a huge impact on the number of friends you have. My younger brother and sister, for example, have over 800 (perhaps my sister has over 1,000). Do they really know all of these people? I don’t know. But one thing is certain: the more friends you have, and the better you are at expressing your love for them, the stronger your “intangible asset” will be as we wade through this technologically-driven age. But I digress.

This is my criteria for being a facebook friend: you have to have had a meaningful conversation with the person you seek to add.

That is the only rule I abide by. I do not refer to myself as Christopher John or Christopher Jack or John Jack or Jack Johnson or C. Jack or Chris K. or Jack K. I use my name as people know me. I do not fear the facebook police, and neither should you.

Privacy is within the “penumbra” of rights recognized in the Constitution by the Supreme Court, and while this privacy generally refers to sexual matters, it should one day be expanded to cover communications on facebook. Facebook has just gone public. There’s $5 billion in shares out there. Of course, it’s your choice what you put out there, but honestly – why are you on it?

You are on it because everyone else is on it. You have cell phones because everyone else has cell phones. You text constantly (and have an unlimited number per month) because everyone texts constantly. You share pictures of cute kittens and puppies because everyone shares pictures of cute kittens and puppies. You are on it because you want to keep up with the friends that you don’t see everyday, or to take the friendships with those you do see every day to another, more surreal level. But also, you are on it just to stay connected – to “network” if the need arises (and that need will arise, if you believe that recent trends in the employment schemata are here to stay). And you are probably on LinkedIn for the same reason, but probably realize that facebook is probably a stronger tool than LinkedIn.

Now, I am on LinkedIn, and I post almost nothing on my profile (I don’t even think I have a picture yet), but there, I will exude professionalism. I am professional enough on facebook. I list all the places I have worked and I have no shame about what I post, who I tag, what I comment, or what pictures I retain in my profile.

But that day, back in December, when I wrote that status about asking before you judge, I added a hash tag, as has been my practice in comments or status updates deserving of some further witticism. The hash tag on this day in particular was, #iamnevertalkingtoanyoneeveragain, which is what Kafka wrote in one of his journal entries. The problem is thus an existential one that goes to the very heart of colloquial conversation with a friend, or classroom commentary – anything I say may be subject to someone else hearing without my expressed consent – and my reputation is bound to suffer, one way or another. Better not to speak, better not to say anything, better to sit quietly in our rooms for all of eternity, never speaking a controversial word, never composing an inflammatory sentence, waiting, quietly, for the polite offer of a job.
Of course, that’s not the way it is. I know I’m crazy. I know you won’t listen to me. So go on, keep telling everyone you’re so happy in your relationship, that you just got engaged, that you just got married. Tell people to look at your wedding photos and have them comment about how absolutely beautiful you look. Wish people a happy birthday when facebook tells you to do so. When you have a baby, take many pictures and post them often, so friends can keep commenting about how cute they are. When you get accepted for a prestigious fellowship, announce it to the world, so that everyone can congratulate you.

However, never announce that awesome grade you got in Evidence – that would be rude. Also, never go on personal attacks – it is just tres declassee. Finally, preach your politics to the most obnoxious degree possible. Point out how dumb Gingrich, Santorum, and Perry are, and decry homophobia, racism, and all other morally reprehensible positions, so long as your views fall in line with the norms endorsed by your influential associates, colleagues, and peers. Never admit that the view opposite yours holds any water whatsoever. Follow these rules, and success will be yours.

Christopher J. Knorps is a 2L at Brooklyn Law School. He has written two novels, a book of short stories, and a memoir of his 10-month-stint in L.A. None of his creative writings have ever been published in print form. He enjoys studying bankruptcy law. He ranks in the upper 55% of his class. You may find his blog by visiting flyinghouses.blogspot.com. It consists primarily of book reviews, a dozen or so film and music reviews, a few pieces of sports journalism, and a light smattering of “special comments” about the study of law in 2010-2012.

Special Comment - On Using Movie Quotations for Commemoratory Purposes; on “ATL,” on Cyber-bullies, on Entering a “TTT” at a Time of Economic Turmoil

It has been a long time but here is the first new post on Flying Houses since August. This probably isn’t the best time to be doing it, either, as I should be taking down the notes I just wrote on Compulsory Joinder and Intervention, and transcribing them into my computer. But we can only be such machines when it comes to legal work as may be reasonably expected.
This is a not a personal check-up 9/10 of the way through the semester. This is a response to a (now not so recent) post on a popular website for the legal profession. Here is a link to that post: http://abovethelaw.com/2010/11/brooklyn-law-2010-class-gift-is-more-like-a-terrible-high-school-yearbook-quote/.

For those uninitiated, Above the Law is an online legal tabloid that is basically the TMZ or Perez Hilton of the legal profession. It is something to read on a lunch break, something to laugh at, nothing to be taken seriously. However, this post in particular affected me in such a personal way that I seriously wanted to go out and kill myself, and I would entertain a claim against them for negligent infliction of emotional distress, but I know that would probably not be a very good claim (perhaps it would be protected by the first amendment? perhaps I could not prove any direct physical injury?). Why do I have such a “thin skull” you might ask?

The post itself is nothing particularly untoward. It merely claims that the Class of 2010 made a mistake in the quote they decided to put on a plaque in the library. The quote is from A League of Their Own, a film about women in the 1940’s who decided to form a baseball league to counteract the suspension of Major League Baseball and its many players signing up for service in World War II. There are many quotable moments in the film, but the one the Class of 2010 chose happened to be this: “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it…The hard is what makes it great.” Automatically, this is turned into a sexual reference, which doesn’t really make sense given the second sentence, but this is immaterial. Should quotes from movies be plastered on the walls of law schools? Don’t we have “higher values” than those of popular culture? (Please don't let us start believing that there are better quotes to be found in film than literature--even judicial opinions would be better fodder). The class has asserted that it strove to begin a tradition, whereby students would touch the plaque as they pass under it while coming down from the second floor of the library. I have not seen anyone do this and I am afraid that if someone was seen doing this, they would be laughed at.

However, there were many comments to this post that were certainly untoward, and a source of my emotional distress (one other article on ATL, written by a psychiatrist who had also been through law school, bemoaned the opportunities of those holding J.D.’s but seeking employment apart from the legal field, which also contributed to said distress). The very first one reads “Crooklyn = TTTT.” Now I am not sure what the fourth T signifies (TTT signifies “third-tier toilet,” a derogatory term for a school not ranked in the top 50 in the nation), but the statement itself, posted by someone known as nothing more than “$$$,” certainly sends a harmful message. The next comment, posted by “Wow,” points the reader to Brooklyn’s budget planner page on its website. It reads, “Lulz at the price tag for this dump!!” Is “Lulz” some variant of LOL or is it something more nefarious? BLS is expensive, but so are most law schools. Scholarships are the only way a student can justify the enormous price tag after already having been through so much previous education. The next comment is from Kenny Powers who is a character on the HBO series Eastbound and Down and he offers the prescient wisdom (for those of us walking into final exams as an already uphill struggle), “If at first you don’t succeed then maybe you just suck.” A couple others joke about how much Kenny Powers sucks, then someone makes fun of the “living with parents” column of the budget (taking housing out of the equation) because that is what students will be doing after graduation. From here on in, the comments become more sporadic and less focused. Apparently, “Watch your head,” was another option for the quotation. This would have been sort of eloquent given the state of legal hiring patterns in 2010. Someone brings up a better quote from the same movie: “You know, if I had your job, I’d kill myself. Wait here, I’ll see if I can dig up a pistol.” This would also have been better, but dark, very dark, and law schools should not be propagating dark thoughts, though they inevitably must.

Now comes the painful part—an alum from BLS posts and sticks up for the school, and legal education in general, saying that it will pay off over time, and not amortize or depreciate like a car. They then get taken to task for failing to discern that student loans accrue interest and therefore may be considered technical amortization/depreciation. Another person says the plaque is fitting for BLS students because women baseball players ended up unemployed and broke. Other potential quotes are considered from the movie: “There’s no crying in law school” and “You’re gonna lose. You’re gonna lose.” There is then a discussion of a possible typo on the plaque in the use of the ellipsis. Blue-booking rules are debated. Someone else points out that all of the comments are cynical, and that everyone posting is an a-hole. A very dry reply read “Law students generally are not cynical. You have to graduate and realize the harsh realities of life and being unemployed/underemployed with massive student loan debt before the cynacism (sic) kicks in.” Another person named “<2012>” simply writes, “You are DOOMED.” Another person suggests the school hang a plaque saying, “See 11 U.S.C.A. 523(a)(8).” This was fairly clever as it forced me to use WestLaw to look up what it meant. Here is a quote that seemed particularly appropriate: “Let me sum up what I think of you when I hear you go to Brooklyn Law (particularly class of 2012 or 2013): (1) You weren’t smart enough to get into a better school, and (2) you’re even stupider than I would have thought otherwise because you’re paying an exorbitant amount of tuition. WTF are these people thinking, particularly those who enrolled this year in the middle of a recession?”

The other contenders for the quotation for the plaque are then listed near the end of the thread. (none of which I like very much, except for this one: "The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity." -Seneca) And there we are. I luckily did not post anything myself on this thread, because then I would know the pain of a direct attack. I have had enough experiences with that on the Speakeasy at PW.org to know better.

I don’t know if a legal education is worth it or not if you go to a TTT school and this post has given me certain doubts. Of course, one can always tell themselves to buck up and give it their best effort regardless, but can you really forget you’ve seen something awful? Or does it pay to not have an “Ostrich problem?” If I am substantially certain that my education is a waste of time, but I insist on pretending that everything is going alright, aren’t I just as guilty of wasting an education? This is like whether or not I wanted to check my Torts midterm grade last week. I could have not looked, and felt better, but because I did look, I know I am in grave danger, and some drastic measures must be implemented if I am to recover and not waste this opportunity I’ve spent years putting together.

Or are cyber-bullies just out to get everyone regardless, to hide behind their computers and make acid-tongue comments in an effort to convince strangers that they are witty or intelligent, when they really just come off as mean. Or is it just a way to blow off steam? I do know one thing. I don’t feel very good about where I am or what I am doing. It’s not the website that made me feel this way, but it certainly didn’t help matters. Assumption of Risk would be their defense in an action. Law students attending less prestigious schools or with poor academic performances should enter ATL at their own risk. If you want to ride “the Flopper,” you should know that you may fall down. You may not sue ATL for NIED because it is on the internet, and the internet should not be able to hurt you physically. Also, cyber-bullies are not within the exclusive control of ATL. They are not employees—they are followers, they are fans.

I have to bring in the personal element and decide whether or not BLS is a good choice or not. There are a few frustrating elements about this school.

#1: The Bookstore. Admittedly a minor issue, but 1Ls had a rude awakening this year when they found that few of the books they ordered would be available from the bookstore until the second or third week of class, forcing us to find the people with the books, xerox assignments, and generally feel that we did not have the tools to properly comprehend the material. However, the bookstore apologized and offered to pay shipping costs incurred from books bought from outside sources.

#2: The Halls, The Claustrophobia: I always preface this complaint with the statement that, for me, the choice came down to Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, or BLS. I do not think Loyola has the same problem as BLS as their campus has nearly a dozen buildings or so and everything is very spread out and aesthetically pleasing. BLS, by contrast, slams more than 1,200 students together in a giant rectangular building, and puts most of the major classes on floors 4, 5, and 6, resulting in bottlenecks at elevators and sometimes stairwells and hallways—not to mention a generally cramped atmosphere inside the actual classrooms. This underscores the fact that we are all competing for a very limited number of positions and that all of this hard work and discipline and struggle may end up as the ultimate nightmare yet.

#3: The Competition. Brooklyn may be ranked #67 in the nation or whatever, and #4 or #5 in New York City in general, but that does not mean that its students are less intelligent. Oh sure, we scored lower on the LSATs, that is probably a given—but I’m sure there’s some of us that didn’t score that low, and are receiving a full ride. I’m guessing the majority of my classmates, however, are in the same position as me, which provides reasonable tuition assistance, with the stipulation that you must finish in the top 40% of your class (roughly a B to B+ overall GPA) to reclaim it in subsequent years. When I put in my seat deposit and signed my promissory note, I thought I’d coast through law school, I thought I’d be a star, I thought I’d get straight A’s and get offered a big law firm job at OCI and pay off my debt in no time and pay $3000 a month in rent, or even buy my own place. A few months later, and reality has given me a swift kick in the rear again. I will say this about my classmates—sometimes, it can be awkward, if you know someone by face, and you maybe even know their name, but you have not introduced yourselves, for whatever awkward reasons you have. And it may be the case at every law school, but my classmates constitute the smartest, most hardworking group of people I have ever been surrounded by, and I thought I could throw down, I thought I could keep up with anyone, but they are a tough group to be scaled against on a curve.

But maybe we aren’t that intelligent, as the one comment that seems particularly more harsh than the others states. Maybe we have truly nebulous reasons for being here in the first place. People ask me what kind of law I want to practice, or what kind of lawyer I want to be, and I have no idea. I think I am going to start saying “any area that will hire me” or “the kind that has a job.” I thought that going to law school would open up more career options, but it has really just opened up one new area—and one that is extremely competitive. I did not fully realize the gravity of this situation until a couple months into the semester, when we started discussing internship applications.

I will apply for internships starting now. My grades will be out January 15th. There is still hope that I could ace all of my exams, have an awesome GPA, get an awesome internship, get on the awesome law journal, keep my awesome scholarship (maybe even get a better one), and live an awesome life in Brooklyn Heights. [Which reminds me that I never pointed out the positive qualities of BLS. I do think it is the best area to go to law school in New York City because of its proximity to the courts in Brooklyn. I do think that the receptions, events, and other school-sponsored activities it hosts are some of the best I have ever attended (but this also has a negative effect—I have personally spread myself thin between the activities, the clubs, the job search, reading assignments, outlining, and all of the other facets that make up a law student’s life). I do think Brooklyn Heights is a great area (though not as “exciting” or “fun” as the Village may be for NYU students).] But there is also the reality that this is a pipe dream, and a dream that will end when my exams are finished and I see my grades, which, if my first midterm is any indication, will prove horribly depressing and provide material for the most difficult period of my life yet. For now, I can grind, and I can hope that I can change my approach, and I can pray that a miracle will occur, and all of my classmates will suddenly become extremely stupid the morning of the exam, and we will all do very poorly, and it will be okay. But experience knows it is not so.

So I will press on, and I will not think about how tenuous this life may be for me, and I will focus, and maybe it will all work out yet. I don’t even want to express a doubt on the matter (!) because it seems like throwing in the towel, or setting yourself up for disappointment. Let me say this: as frustrating as the whole law school thing may be, if you can’t get into a top 14 (or even top 50) school with any kind of funding, it is no more frustrating than any other technical training for any other job. The main difference comes with the price tag, and it’s the element that can cause serious breakdowns. When cyber-bullies know what is at stake, they should think before they post something harmful or injurious. I am sure there have been suicides because someone has posted something mean about someone on Facebook, and maybe this will constitute a tort action. But when the postings are anonymous, other questions of privacy may be raised. I am going to end this long and rambling post by saying that I am very proud that Flying Houses has always had positive, happy comments. If this “special comment” receives any comments, I hope they will engender a real and beneficial discussion, and not a laundry-list of urban dictionary-isms meant to make others “in the know” laugh in appreciation.