citational status anxiety

not real but not fake either

A few years ago I published an article called “Sore Winners” that has become, in its own small way, the bane of my life. Not because I think it’s wrong (I don’t) or I wish I hadn’t written it (I don’t), but because it’s a constant reminder that after you publish anything, that piece goes straight into the darkness of the void. I did not invent the phrase “sore winners” (I just googled it and here’s a book from 2005 apparently) nor did the basic observation underlying the piece (“many dominant figures think of themselves as underdogs”) take a genius to puzzle out.

Which is why I’m constantly running into the argument, all the time. “Sore Winners” was not a piece that required delving into archives or translating hitherto untranslated works, it didn’t require field work, it didn’t need me to go conduct interviews, it just meant looking around and then using my tiny little brain. Other people also look around and use their tiny little brains all the time.¹ They did it before me and they w…