I Don't Know What I Know But I Know I Don't Like It

So I'm writing a research paper about Tao Lin and the influence of impersonal technology on his writing (namely his poetry). I've learned a lot about him through my research; for instance I've learned that while I really, really like his poetry, I don't really care for anything else he has done. I've paged through Richard Yates before and was not a fan of the minimalist, not-sure-if-ironic style; somehow this same style is far more appealing to me in his first-person poems. I appreciate their stream-of-consciousness style and it feels a lot more sincere and is thus a lot more endearing when it comes from the horse's mouth. Tao's fictional characters are not as easy to feel for; the writing is so flat there's no emotion.

Anyway. Other things I've learned about today, thanks to Tao: Bebe Zeva. It's weird but at one point in my life, a year or so ago, I was very into reading teenage fashion blogs, especially the excellent Style Rookie by my main girl Tavi. Tavi is going on 15 and is extremely tiny and has a cool voice and likes Freaks and Geeks and I just want her to be friends with me. Sadly the likelihood of that is impossibly low. Like, negative infinity. This is not all completely irrelevant, don't worry, although honestly irrelevance is what you should come to expect from me by now, 151 posts in. Bebe Zeva, if you clicked the link I so politely left for you, is also a fashion blogger; what's different about her and Tavi, though, is that while Style Rookie is focused on more than just fashion (read Tavi's recent, very introspective and overall great post about this here), Bebe is kind of all about marketing herself. She just posts pictures of herself and talks about them. Tavi doesn't always post outfit photos, and while Bebe doesn't solely talk about herself she does always somehow bring the topic back to her. I mean, it's her blog, so whatever, they're self-absorbed on principle. But it's markedly different than the style of the maturing Tavi. (Bebe and I, by the way, are the same age. Crazy.)

How is any of this related to Tao? Tao and his wifey Megan Boyle made a documentary about Bebe, just following her around with a computer. Bebe has a very girlish voice and seems way more like a teenager on tape. Tavi also seems young but again, it's different. I could see Bebe being a high schooler. Tavi? Eh.


BEBE ZEVA (TRAILER 1) from MDMAfilms on Vimeo.

So why is Bebe so special that she gets a movie about her? Personally I would love a documentary about Tavi but whatever, maybe I actually wouldn't, maybe they both would be equally as dull. Because this movie, sorry Tao, looks rather uninteresting. I don't know, I guess I find Bebe fascinating if I'm still writing about her, but maybe I'm just more fascinated by Tao's interest in her. Because it stretches beyond this.

Another thing I came upon during my research that I only just connected after reading extensively about Bebe is that Tao is very close with some guy known only as Carles, who is the main blogger on some extremely obnoxious and even slightly offensive to my precious little eyeballs blog called Hipster Runoff. I only came across Tao and Carles' connection while skimming Google headlines; I didn't pursue the matter. But then I found this extensive, slightly disturbing, and overall kind of pointless article about Carles, written by Bebe.

In it she details at extreme length her burgeoning relationship with Carles. It's interesting because it totally paints her as annoying and a little pathetic; Bebe is very self-deprecating. She's also hard to get. Maybe because I had never read about her before but on her original blog, a Wordpress, she has a long, rambling post about a "family" trip with her sister, her "brother," and her "dad," Travis. Apparently Travis is actually her friend? And I'm still not quite sure if her "little brother" is actually related to her. I feel kind of stupid about not knowing any of this for sure but that's not totally my fault. Ugh, anyway. Bebe is kind of sympathetic if you look at the FAQ on her tumblr as she writes about her mom's health problems but this article is just...ugh.

The creepy part about this is that it's been speculated that Tao Lin is actually Carles. I found this out after recognizing the name and googling its connection, again, with Tao. While there is a lot of evidence against this theory I'm still not totally sure. After all, in the article, Bebe receives a package with a return address of "Tao Lin," a package that was supposed to be sent by Carles. It's all kind of a vague mystery and I'm really, really confused by it all.

Before I read that article, or maybe concurrently, who remembers events sequentially anymore, I read that Bebe had won a chat with Tao. Yeah, I think I read them at the same time. If Tao sent Bebe a package before talking to her then he must have known something about her? Surely if he saw her occasionally creepily sexualized photos on his "friend's" website he would know of her? And then she happens to win this chat with him. And there's still the possibility that he IS Carles, and that really they'd talked for a long time, and he always asks her about her mother, and oh God just read the chat, I don't know what to think about any of this, ugh.

Some think that Richard Yates is based off of the relationship between Bebe and Carles, which is strange and upset stomach-making if you know what the book is about. It's even more nauseating if Carles really is Tao! And I don't even know, I need more of a reason for Tao making this movie about her. They had talked a couple of times, the first time I guess being in that chat, but then he just found her interesting enough to make a movie about her? And he's in the movie himself. Watch that trailer. I like Tao's voice. ...uh. Yeah. I sort of don't even know where I'm going with this anymore but I guess the bottom line is that I don't get Bebe Zeva. I don't understand her at all. And now I want to analyze how now she has a blogspot instead of a Wordpress because she and Tao talk about that fact in their chat and man, man, man, I really need to write my paper. I've written more about Bebe Zeva than I have about Tao, than I have my entire paper, and I find this kind of inspiring but also kind of depressing and I should do my work. So. Puzzle this out for me.

EDIT: God, it just doesn't end. This extremely biased article from Vice makes me once again almost-symapthize for Bebe. She's just a normal person, really, who's trying way, way, way too hard to make herself known on the Internet. We could psychoanalyze her all night but it's not worth it. She's no different than any of the Urban Outfitters obsessives at my school, her pretensions and obvious minor web fame aside. She just really, really wants to be noticed. I wonder if Tao is exploiting her, and I wonder if he's doing it knowingly. I wonder when Bebe will realize it.

I find Tao fascinating but I don't care much for him outside of his poetry. "i am unemployed" is just a great poem, but I don't know, I wonder if he's a fluke, I wonder if you are a little bit happier than i am  was his only collection ever written from a place of humorous sincerity. The rest of his work is just so gimmicky; he's now trying so, so hard for attention and putting less emphasis on the actual writing. It's really too bad, because he is a talented poet. I wonder what the future holds for him. I wonder a lot.