Shulgan.com

Indy Coffee Shops, Starbucks and One Final Raymi

Getting Killed By Raymi the Minx

Earlier this week someone threatened to put a flaming bag of shit on my door stoop. It's been a while since that happened. It all started on Wednesday when I called Lauren White, the 26-year-old blogger better known as Raymi the Minx. I wanted to interview her. She said yes, and we made arrangements to meet up the next day for lunch. What seemed like seconds later, my editor e-mailed me. "You've already been blogged, my friend," he wrote. Lauren had posted it on her site: "the globe and mail is coming by tomorrow... i better watch my mouth."

I love that image—as though the whole of the Globe and Mail was going to Burlington to do the interview. Which may be what she expected to happen.

As it was, Stackhouse stayed on Front Street. What interested me about Lauren was ancillary to a major development in her life. It was clear that she had broken up with her fiancé. What was surprising was that this woman who blogged about the most banal details of her life, including photographing her meals, had opted not to mention this enormous life change. If you maintain a much-followed blog that purports to record the details of your life, don't you have a duty to at least include a line or two? "Hey guys, I broke up with my fiancé, I don't want to talk about it." 

But during our interview, I discovered that Ms. White didn't feel she had to. She conceived of Raymi the Minx as a character, she explained. As a more extreme version of Lauren White. And I quoted her saying as much in the Globe and Mail story I wrote.

Lauren reacted poorly to the article. She didn't like it. For example, she didn't like that I quoted Hal Niedzviecki saying that she didn't have any talent. I disagree with that, by the way; I think she's an enormously disciplined and talented blogger. Her followers liked it even less; for my apparent misdeed, one of them vowed to place the aforementioned offal on my doorstep. (In her comments section. To which I reply: Please don't.) Oh, and then there's the message Tyler Stewart of the Barenaked Ladies sent to Ms. White, dissing the article as well as the Globe and Mail. Geez. I think it means something when the Barenaked Ladies diss you. What, I'm not sure. But something. It means something.

Anyway, what I wasn't able to fit into the article, was my opinion on the whole mess. Which is this: I think Lauren is being hypocritical. And I think she knows it. I think she knows that not telling her readers about her break-up was weak and spineless. People don't interpret her blog as being about a character. People interpret her blog as being about her—as an honest and relatively unfiltered account of her life. That's why it's so captivating.

Lauren, if Raymi the Minx is about a character, then why would I read it? No one reads blogs about fictional characters. Because there are thousands of blogs out there that are about real people—real people who allow their readers into all the fucked-up, confusing events in their lives. Lauren, not blogging about your break-up was beneath you. Your blog is a remarkable account of a young woman's life in post-millennial Canada. One of these days, anthropologists may study it.

Raymi the Minx has been boring the past little while, perhaps because you've begun to conceive of Raymi as this character separate from yourself. Knock yourself upside the head and go back to thinking of Raymi as the honest online version of your life. Make it as raw as it used to be, before you met Phil. And admit that it's not about a character. It's about you. You messed up when you didn't blog about your break-up, you should tell your readers. You do have a duty to be honest. And in the future, you're going to do better.

And remember: Please no flaming bags.

Note on the above photo: Lauren posted it on her site, which is fine, because the shot was taken on her camera. But I'm the one who actually shot that photo, so I figure I have as much a right to post it as she does.