Personal Essays for Peanuts
Are Feminist Sites Exploiting Their Contributors?
Sam Dylan Finch began blogging about mental health and queer topics in 2014 — right in the middle of the personal-essay boom. It wasn’t long before he realized he could make a little money with the same kind of writing he was already producing for free.
Finch, a 26-year-old genderqueer trans man, wrote unflinchingly and compassionately about a wide range of tough topics: gender identity, complex PTSD, suicidality, attention deficit disorder and the stigma around all of these. He found the work challenging, cathartic, empowering and terrifying — and he reached an audience of people who felt like they were being validated for the first time.
But writing about these subjects soon took a toll.
“When [writing about] trauma was paying my bills, I had to go to that dark place, whether I really wanted to or not. And that’s not a healthy way to engage with personal pain, especially when you’re not even making enough money to get yourself some damn good therapy to deal with the aftermath,” Finch says.
Finch ultimately stepped back from writing about his painful experiences, except for occasional pieces on his blog, Let’s Queer Things Up! He’s now an editor at Upworthy; he acknowledges that his early work allowed him to…
