Should We Give Tao Lin's Intern a Job?
Yesterday we posted about gimmick-crazed "writer" Tao Lin, who recently raised $12,000 in investors' money for a book that doesn't even exist is "95% finished," according to Tao. And one of the investors was Tao's own intern! It seems that said lass, detailed in an email sent to us today, had ambitions of working here, at humble old Gawker Media. It was her idea for Tao to lurk outside our offices and put his stupid Britney Spears stickers everywhere! But, she says, she'd still like to intern here, specifically at our ladyblog Jezebel. So, what should we do? Read the email after the jump and weigh in on this crucial Matter of the Youngs.
I am the Tao Lin intern/investor. I like Gawker. I like Jezebel. I even like the blogs about porn and Silicon Valley. Sometime in April, Jezebel posted a wanted ad for interns. I replied within hours. I sent several follow up emails and got a pleasant thank you note from the team for applying, but nothing serious transpired. I had been reading Tao´s blog actively since February. Shortly after I started reading his blog the infamous Tao Lin Intern Uprising occurred. I decided a militant poet might be a good person to intern for. Tao seemed less discriminating than the gal gab blog, he was drafting interns in bulk for his army. I did not write a cover letter or send a resume. I left a comment on his blog, can I be your intern, he replied, yes. In may when my spring semester at school ended I shipped out. I had been recruited. Instead of interning for Jezebel I am now linked on Gawker. Instead of being the Gawker intern who had to scrape Britney Spears stickers off the Gawker door, I was the intern telling Tao to put his stickers around your office. I only suggested lurking around the outside of the building and peppering the street with stickers, the door was his idea. I still want to intern for Jezebel.