The responses to the blog post that somehow became a front-page story on Alternet just keep piling up! First there were the commenters on Alternet, then there were a half-dozen writers who took their thoughts to their own blogs, now there are the comments threads on those sites. The most angry criticism seems to fall into themes, which (for your convenience and entertainment) I’ve outlined with examples for you below.

Hi, I didn’t like it:
Hated the article. Wanted to put my fist through the computer screen.

The article stinks of elitism and unexamined prejudice.

The article is a piece of navel-fluff gazing.

… stinks of juvenile, navel-gazing, approval-seeking narcissism.

You call yourself a feminist?
Articles like this claiming to represent the “progressive” voices, including feminists, are a joke. There’s nothing new, interesting or insightful about them. They rely on false stereotypes, and avoid discussing real issues. By publishing junk like this, alternative news sources such as alternet are missing the whole point of being “alternative.”

Stallings has fallen into the trap that has ensnared so many femininity-loving self-avowed feminists before her: she cannot tell the difference between what is true and what she wishes were true.

I don’t think she’s a “traitor” to feminism, but I do think she’s something of a traitor to herself.

This is the kind of miserable crap that comes out of feminism that really gives me a bad attitude towards it that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Women’s rights? Awesome. Social equality, fanfriggintastic. Is it antifeminist to diet? Stupidest shit I’ve ever heard in my life, short of Bush winning any election, ever.

Let’s get personal:
With this essay, Ms. Stallings prove herself to be a tool of The Man.

Congratulations, Ariel, for daring to follow such all-too-obvious common sense. Seriously, isn’t it high time you not follow such mindless groupthink and had a mind of your own??

The author is likely a Trust Fund Baby who was able to snag a syndicated media gig after a decorative internship at an “alternative” media organization. No doubt she will have a lucrative career at Conde Nast at some point in her future, where she will pen earnest and uplifting puff pieces examining her gut-wrenching decision to get a tummy tuck after the birth of her genetically engineered surrogate-bred twins. By subtly attacking imaginary feminists who might discourage her “life affirming” decisions to be a post-partum Hoochie Mama, she will earn herself a coveted spot on the “liberal media” pundit circuit. No doubt,her “refreshing post-feminist” views on everything from Botox to Burqas will garner her numerous media awards.

Conspiracy theories:
I wouldn’t be surprized if this article was really sponsored by WW, it reads like a commercial.

Personally, I didn’t think much of her article. They way she rambled on about Weight Watchers, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was being paid for it.

That is a wonderful advert for Weight Watchers and a nice jab at feminism which evidently means “stuffing myself” and “giving up control”. What a total crock.

I think the whole article is made up.

As much as I’m all for bucking up and taking it, I can’t help but chew over a few lessons from this experience:

1. Ask up front if web publications have syndication deals with other sites.
Not that I wouldn’t have let Sirens run the piece if I’d known about their syndication arrangement with Alternet, but at least I wouldn’t have been totally blindsided to wake up one morning and find dozens of people talking about how much they hated me for writing something I’d kind of forgotten even existed. Context is everything, and I agree with many critics on one point: this article so did NOT belong on Alternet. I didn’t submit it to them, and I have no idea why they chose to run it on their site. I’m guessing because they wanted to get people riled up. Mission accomplished, I suppose.

2. Watch edits carefully.
The two lines of the article that people are bitching about the most are two of the small tweaks that were made by editors at both Sirens and Alternet. I stand behind the article 100%, but this isn’t the first time that a subhead or an editor-penned closing sentence has gotten me in trouble, and I should probably know better by now. In my efforts not to be a diva, I approve most edits. Maybe I shouldn’t.

3. Accept that maybe I’m more of a provocateur than I know.
I tend to shy away from provocative, contrarian web writing. It feels like too much flame baiting and I’d rather write stuff that inspires people than stuff that gets them angry. But somehow this article (which was written to inspire) ended up making people angry … and that’s sort of fascinating. It got a lot of people talking, and while I might not have liked what they were saying (seriously: trust fund baby? wtf?) there’s no denying that one form of inspiration is inspiring dialog … even if it’s grumpy, critical dialog.

4. Maybe those reservations about writing about weight loss were founded.
I was really hesitant to write the blog post that ultimately turned into this article … and this kind of feedback is exactly why. It seems difficult to have polite web discourse about certain topics … and evidently this is one of them. That doesn’t mean I’ll avoid writing about such things again, but I’ll be better prepared for the potential fall-out.

Now, back to bucking up! Or rather: let’s move on. Who wants to talk about the burgeoning American circus underground?