omgstephlol:

I’ve been waiting for the right time to write something about this, but it seems there isn’t one, really, except that I’m ~1.5 business days away from starting a new job so I guess like, right now is the time.

I am no longer with Thought Catalog. The split was super amiable (and really, I couldn’t ask for more from the place I worked day in and day out for two years). I left because I was offered a position with Gawker that I’m really excited about — it just felt like the right move for me and I think my former coworkers agree. 

I think I’m at a safe enough distance to say that the experience of quitting my first post-grad job scarred me. I gave two weeks notice to my boss at her request, then she fired me after week one. On a Saturday. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my coworkers and had zero support from my former boss, someone I’d spent three years building a company and friendship with. It was a really disheartening experience. I’m happy to say that my experience leaving TC was nothing like that, and it’s better prepared me (mentally) to enter into a new situation without feeling like, totally fucked and depressed. So thanks, TC!

I love TC, to be honest. I’m walking away with a ton of knowledge, so many amazing relationships, and the feeling that I actually accomplished something meaningful (don’t laugh; this is real). I wrote an email to some of the writers I’d been editing during my time there, and their responses made me want to Claire Danes ugly cry. I think when your writing and byline stagnate, there’s this jadedness that takes over — and this definitely happened to me. I forgot how exciting it is to be published the first or twentieth time, I forgot how amazing it is to get feedback from an editor that ultimately improves your work, I forgot the power of receiving a negative comment and having it actually affect you, then having someone there to stroke your head and tell you that internet is full of shitheads. I was doing these things for people on a regular basis without even realizing it, and to know that those people appreciated the job I was doing means so much to me. I will probably miss this aspect of my job the most; I was in a really unique position and I hope the employees who follow me will respect and appreciate what they’re capable of doing for other people. Writing is one form of helping people, but no doubt that editing is a super important job and one I feel blessed (SO BLESSED) to have under my belt.

That said, it was writing that lead me to TC in the first place, and I’d be remiss to skip over that part. The thing that’s really great about TC is that it’s an open and experimental platform that doesn’t have a uniform voice (if you’re paying attention), and so I was able to try a bunch of shit that would’ve never flown at other publications. And believe me, I know this because I’ve gone through the pitching process at probably every website you can think of and a site’s “tone” is usually EVERYTHING — you can either adapt or GTFO. I also got my ass kicked by commenters, which helped me improve both my editing and writing. And my visibility increased, which led to a million opportunities I would’ve never had if I were, say, writing copy for the backs of shampoo bottles (yes, that’s what I was doing in another life before I began writing on the internet).

I try to think about what my favorite articles are a lot because it comes up in conversation occasionally, and it always feels like this shameful thing because the essays/’things’ I like best are the ones no one really reads; that makes me hesitant to call them out. But as I close this chapter, I thought it might be good to have some conviction and just be like, “yo, I like these things.” That said, I’ve made a separate Tumblr page with what my favorite pieces were. Here it is. [I know it’s kind of long, but when you’ve written ~350 essays for the same place that’s bound to happen.] To be clear, I’m not 100% happy with any of these and would edit them if I were like, actually doing something with them, but just bear with the Steph of yesteryear who wrote them and know that any writer who doesn’t find something they’d like to go back and edit is a fucking liar.

In closing, thanks for following along. Thanks to TC for enabling me to give you guys something to follow. Thank you Gawker, for this next phase of my career. Thank you Jesus, our lord and savior (JK). Thank you Kanye West, for your Twitter presence. Thank you India, thank you terror, thank you disillusionment… 

So, so sad to see you go, you irreplaceable cluster of professionalism and jokes about 90s R&B. 

But now you are on a mystical voyage to hit all the brightest stars in the media world, and if you forget all the little people who loved you when you were just flippin burgers, i’ll come to New York and kill you. (✿◠‿◠) 

Good luck, and can’t wait to see everything you do!

(Also, if you’re not already following Stephanie, what is wrong with you?)