William Stroock
It was such an odd thing. We pissed off a PhD on Twitter yesterday basically for being insufficiently anti-Russian. ‘Why do they always have Uke flags in their bio?’ we asked. Let’s call this PhD Frank. Frank really let us have it, being a PhD and all. Failing to be impressed with Frank’s academic credentials, we remarked that we too could throw some letters after our last name, and aren’t you impressed with yourself? Then a fellow PhD came to Frank’s defense, and then another.
We could turn this into a 2003 and Me Post because 20 years ago we’d finished our MA (AMU, online for those of you who like to whip out your degree and slap it on the server tray)*. A few people urged us to continue studying. We mulled it over and realized during the 3-5 years it’d take to get a doctorate we could write several novels and dozens of magazine articles. No thanks. Our life in the late 90s turned on a few bad decisions. Saying no to a PhD was our first great decision of the 21st century. We’ve published more in a decade than these fucking people will their entire lives.
Anyway. we learned during our professorial days, eight years ended now, that there’s a certain type in the profession that must needs sign their emails: PhD, tenure track. Frank is that type.
We checked, and Frank has written a single book with 18 ratings. One of his white knight defenders, let’s call her Francine, has written two books with 36 and 17 ratings. You have to put in the work, Francine told us.
Have you ever been in a situation where you were a split second away from punching someone in the mouth? Oh….how we thought about doing so, metaphorically, on Twitter, by dropping our Amazon page in Frank and Francine’s mentions.