Following buzz surrounding the upcoming movie Blonde, Twitter has theorized a new form of poster called the “literary non-hottie.”

The tweet above criticizing prolific writer and poster Joyce Carol Oates for her treatment of Marilyn Monroe in her novel Blonde (2000) went viral and spawned a series of replies and riffs that have since taken on a life of their own.

The post was inspired by the film, also called Blonde (2022), which many argue misrepresents the life of Marilyn Monroe, over-sexualizes her (it has an NC-17 rating) and is mean-spirited. The film is based on the Joyce Carol Oates novel, and many people seem to think the problems began there.

In her tweet posted in the wee hours of this morning, Teresa Mailhot (a writer and professor) argued that Oates’ skewed depiction of Marilyn Monroe may be due to the fact that Oates is a “literary non-hottie,” and so cannot tell the story of a “hottie” like Marilyn Monroe with empathy.

It seems as if Mailhot is arguing that the “literary non-hottie” subject seems to perform a kind of internalized misogyny that is equal or greater than what male writers sometimes do when describing attractive women such as Monroe. Marilyn Monroe has been in the public spotlight a lot recently.

Mailhot attempted to clarify her position in later tweets, intervening in the dumpster-fire debate that ensued following her hot take.

Many rushed to the defense of Oates, arguing that she was in fact hot, as well as literary, back in the day.

Others, however, also criticized Oates for her "eccentric posting practices."

A number of people on literary Twitter and outside of it simply reveled in the wonders of “literary non-hottie” as a phrase, planning to use it to refer to themselves.

Some attempted to sum up the debate, seeing it as emblematic of Twitter discourse. In a sense, the argument about the “literary non-hottie” felt more like a poem than a debate to many. Through graceful and stylized language, the tweets and their responses express something essential about the platform and who we are as we scroll.

Being a spectator of a Twitter discourse is like watching some kind of intricate martial art — it is all deeply complicated, dramatic and focused on form rather than function. Boxers don’t punch each other to hurt each other, but for the sake of the punch itself, just as Twitter people don’t argue to win but for the sake of the argument itself.

On literary Twitter especially, language becomes intricate to the point of absurdity, controversy becomes aestheticized and takes turn so hot they often blow up in the faces of those who wield them.