LRN No.24: the seven stages of a virus

Plus: pickle my eyes and ears

The day after my last Little Red Notebook entry was published, an article I wrote went viral. It was about the day I spent with Simone and Malcolm Collins, the poster children of America’s pronatalism movement, who are on a mission to save humanity by having as many babies as possible, but who don’t seem to like children very much.

That one line summary doesn’t really do it justice. So much happened that day; it was the most batshit crazy reporting experience I think I’ve ever had. Four hours into it, Malcolm hit his two-year-old son in the face, in a restaurant, in front of me, when he knew I was recording everything, because Torsten had knocked the table with his foot and made it wobble. Immediately after striking his two-year-old, Malcolm just carried on with the interview, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

(Indeed, hitting small children in the face is based on something Malcolm says Simone saw in the natural world: tigers ‘bop’ their cubs to discipline them, and they have based their system of corporal punishment on that.)

My original tweet about it was seen nearly seven million times in three days. (It’s inevitable that the one tweet you write that’s seen by millions is the one with the typo. Never tweet while walking through mud at a festival.)

Here are some things I’ve learned from the very weird experience of having a piece go viral.

On the first day, people seemed to be really reading the article.

On the second day, Malcolm gave an interview to the New York Post saying my article had caused several people to report him to child protective services. He didn’t deny hitting his two-year-old, and went as far as saying my piece “did a very good job” of describing how the family uses corporal punishment.

(He claimed to the Post that he’d hit Torsten because jarring the table fell into the category of “something that could cause serious harm to himself or others. At a table full of infants, knocking it over could easily kill someone.” Torsten was the only infant sitting at the table. Malcolm hit him, as he explained at the time, because “You gotta be nice in restaurants”. He was embarrassed by his kid’s behaviour, not fearful for anyone’s safety.)

On the third day, I began to receive an avalanche of antisemitic abuse from people who were unhappy I’d written something that was critical of a white family that wanted to reproduce as much as possible. I’m talking Nazi cartoons, Pepe memes, people calling for me to be sent to a concentration camp, the lot. Plus lots of tweets from people claiming I must be a bitter, barren spinster - even though I write about my kids in the actual article they are supposedly so angry about. Ahhh, the internet.

On the fourth day, another journalist accused me of plagiarism because she had interviewed the Collinses two years ago. This upset me a lot more than the antisemitic abuse. I truly can’t understand this: just because you interview someone once, it does not mean that you own them in perpetuity. Baffling.

Next came complaints from effective altruists that Simone and Malcolm were not effective altruists - even though Malcolm had spent 40 minutes explaining his brand of effective altruism to me. Then there were many more pieces about and by the Collinses, including a thoughtful piece in New York Magazine, something by Malcolm in the Free Press, and a very long video on their YouTube channel explaining why they’ve decided it’s fine to hit children, but only if they are very little.

Those poor kids.

I also got a lot of messages from other pronatalists who are exasperated that Simone and Malcolm have taken it upon themselves to speak for them. This is a real movement, but the Collinses are its self-appointed leaders.

Photo: Intelligence Squared/Harry Mitchell

In other news, I had a fabulous evening at the Union Chapel interviewing the legend that is Jon Ronson for Intelligence Squared. It was a dream come true to share a stage with Jon, who is every bit as brilliant in person as he is on the page and in audio.

Things that have caught my eyes and ears:

• You can go ahead and pickle my eyes and ears, because I have seen and heard the ultimate now. I went to see Jane’s Addiction at the Camden Roundhouse - twice. The first time, I was very sweaty and messy in the middle of the crowd; the second time I was lucky enough to be a guest of the band, and got to watch it all from the dignity of the pit. Many thanks to Eric Avery for being both my favourite bass player and a very kind host.

  

  I actually took this picture. I still can’t believe it.

• Loved this Guardian Long Read on how steroids went mainstream

• Finished watching Ripley, which is beautiful and brilliant and haunting

• Left How the Light Gets In and the Hay Festival with a head that was both sore and fizzing with ideas. I got to speak to Gabriel Gatehouse on the BBC Stage and had a sneak preview of series two of The Coming Storm that left me eager for more.