This is just the confessional essay boom 2.0, before that it was the blog boom, and it’s always about the writer more than the writing. In fact, that’s what I find most striking about this trend: I’ve noticed these essays “deconstructing girlhood” or whatever are often thousands and thousands of words long and… I kind of suspect people aren’t actually reading them? It’s about the object of the essay more than the essay as a piece of writing.