It strikes me that we — advisors, academics with good positions, tenure — can't simultaneously push PhD students to "make a name" on social media, provide them with little/no support for doing so, then snidely deride those who dare to put their ideas, however half-baked, online.

The whole hiring and publishing economy has been shifted by 2010s-era blogging and Twitter. I and probably you have had professional opportunities we would not have without social media. Those coming up in this brutal profession see that.

Some programs & advisors explicitly tell them: get online! That’s where The Discourse is happening! Put yourself out there! ("Professionally," ofc. Whatever that means. We don't tell them.) So are we surprised when they do? Are we surprised that sometimes this move is premature?

Bash an editor or venue for publishing something bad, ignore it as a naive contribution; but man it is such a bad look for people who have benefited from this system to pull the ladder up behind them. The Discourse isn't happening on a neutral platform with an even playing field.

These thoughts brought to you by two situations from the last month that made me cringe. This profession is awful enough, and we all know the warping effects of grad school, compounded by a catastrophically bad job market. I crave more gentleness, more reading for context.