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E.L. James Did a Twitter Q&A and It Turned into a Disaster

She glamorizes abuse, is a horrible writer to boot

Jun 30, 2015 10:14 GMT  ·  By
E.L. James finds on her own that Twitter doesn't forgive and forget, with disastrous Q&A
   E.L. James finds on her own that Twitter doesn't forgive and forget, with disastrous Q&A

E.L. James is the author of the infamous “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy, the novels that started as “Twilight” fanfiction and glorify abuse by claiming it’s romance. To add insult to injury, all 3 books in the series, “Fifty Shades of Grey,” “Fifty Shades Darker” and “Fifty Shades Freed,” are just shoddy writing.

Of course, that didn’t stop James from writing a fourth book, which came out this month. It doesn’t bring anything new to the story, being actually “Fifty Shades of Grey” written from the perspective of the male lead, Christian Grey.

And yes, it’s just as bad on all accounts as its predecessors. Still, James has to promote it, so she agreed to do a Twitter Q&A, #AskELJames, some hours ago. It turned into a genuine disaster, where she was grilled like a hamburger by her critics.

Does E.L. James have no shame?

You can see some samples of the questions asked of James below. Of course, there were also questions that did get her “approval,” that did not end in her blocking users, and that she answered: like which was her favorite scene to write, and how much research she had done for the more explicit lovemaking sessions included in the book.

But the fun with the hashtag was clearly elsewhere, because people really, really wanted to know if she felt no shame in knowing she’d made a fortune from telling women and impressionable girls that it was ok to be in an abusive relationship as long as the abuser was rich and handsome.

If you’ve read the books or even just excerpts from it, you know what that’s all about.

Others simply came to the “party” to mock James for her inferior writing and for copying Stephenie Meyer, the author of the “Twilight” books, which were the basis of the Summit Entertainment “Twilight” franchise.

Others wanted to have different questions answered, like did she have plans to add more shades of grey to the already existing 50?, had she counted them all or was she just guessing they were 50?, and how did Anastasia survive through high school and college without a computer and email address?

Even more schooled her for being a shoddy writer, asking her if she had any excuse for putting such “drivel” into the world. More importantly, was she ever going to stop?

E.L. James keeps her cool, is laughing all the way to the bank

Obviously, whoever thought the Twitter Q&A was a good idea is probably not working for James anymore.

Her work has been widely debated online since the first book came out, and a simple search would have revealed the dangers of having her go on a platform where users have such unpredictable behavior like Twitter for a Q&A session.

For her part, she kept her cool, so to speak: she blocked and ignored questions she didn’t like, and she only addressed those that were convenient, to which she had already replied on countless occasions before.

It wasn’t fair of her, but addressing her critics would have only been worse for her.

At the end of the session, she thanked everyone for an “interesting” day and she was off. She is probably laughing right now, on her way to the bank: recent figures place her estimated worth at $58 million (€51.8 million), so she probably doesn’t give a hoot that people find her writing or her glamorizing of abuse offensive.

She’s getting paid.