Penelope Trunk: Oversharing on Twitter?
The career-advice columnist's tweet on her miscarriage has social networkers saying, OMG, TMI!
Penelope Trunk has taken oversharing on Twitter to a new level, said Kathleen Parker in The Washington Post. Trunk—the 42-year-old CEO of a career-advice blog called Brazen Careerist—happily tweeted last month that she was having a miscarriage and would be spared the trouble of an abortion. "Is there anything much more grotesque or freakish than a woman essentially celebrating her miscarriage in a public venue?"
Divulging such private information in public wouldn't be a good career move for most women, said Lindsay Robertson in Jezebel. But it was "refreshing" to hear Trunk explain herself to CNN's Rick Sanchez, even if her "matter-of-fact way of talking about abortion is so unheard of that it's jarring even to the ears of a die-hard pro-choicer." If Trunk "had to lose some people's respect to get us talking openly about abortion access on national news, then more power to her." (Watch Penelope Trunk talk Twitter and abortion on CNN.)
It's not just moral scolds who were shocked by Penelope Trunk's oversharing, said J. Maureen Henderson in True/Slant. Trunk is supposed to be a career expert, but tweeting about your abortion plans "doesn't seem like savvy workplace behavior," any more than discussing your gambling problem or your gastric bypass would be. If Trunk did any good, it was by demonstrating that the Twitter TMI epidemic doesn't only afflict "people who aren't old enough to know better."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
The Icelandic women’s strike 50 years onIn The Spotlight The nation is ‘still no paradise’ for women, say campaigners
-
Mall World: why are people dreaming about a shopping centre?Under The Radar Thousands of strangers are dreaming about the same thing and no one sure why
-
Why scientists are attempting nuclear fusionThe Explainer Harnessing the reaction that powers the stars could offer a potentially unlimited source of carbon-free energy, and the race is hotting up