Delia Cai: It’s fun to vehemently dislike something
A conversation with the writer and journalist
Welcome to Human Pursuits, the column that features need-to-know names and stories in media and other creative spaces. Today, a conversation with .
At the risk of reviving an old cliche, Delia Cai’s popular column, Hate Read, often reminds me of modern art.
“I could’ve done that.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t.”
Now in its second season, the column, which features anonymous gripes on a wide range of topics – including judgy moms, fast walkers, Taylor Swift’s outfits, and popular clothing brand The Row – has proven a charming receptacle for the Internet’s most opinionated curmudgeons, inspiring a considerable amount of online discourse.
When she isn’t encouraging people to kick the hornet’s nest, Delia is penning her own Substack, Deez Links, serving as the managing editor for ’s fashion shopping newsletter, Magasin, and interviewing Human Pursuits favourites like Chappell Roan and Ted Chiang.
And so, we had much to discuss.
Our edited and condensed conversation explored Delia’s struggles to relax, her early writing, dream media jobs, personal branding, journalism power dynamics, what she’s learned about hate, and more.
ES: I need to congratulate you on Hate Read Season 2. It seems like you’re booked and busy.
DC: Thank you. Since I started freelancing last year, I’ve been so annoying to my friends and family. I tell them, “Next month I'm gonna chill out,” but it never happens. I think this month I can finally do it. I had one deadline last week, and now I hope to chill and have Hate Read be the focus for a bit.
ES: What does chilling look like to you?
DC: Laughs. We’re about to find out. I have this fantasy that I sit around reading books all day and going to museums, but I don’t know how much capacity I actually have for that. I have the curse where, if I’m not being productive or working on something, I feel like a bad person.
I’ve noticed in my freelance life that whatever errands you have will expand like a gas to fill the time. Suddenly, you’ve spent three hours on laundry when it used to take 45 minutes. It’s lollygagging.
ES: It’s funny, I wanted to ask, “Are you chill?” Laughs.
DC: Not at all. I’m famously unchill, but I’ve been told that it doesn’t come across that way until you meet me or talk to me in person. If I’m being honest, I think there’s a big incentive to project an aura of effortless chaos. Like, “Oh, I just happen to post like this.” It’s a much more interesting front to put up than to be someone who thinks a lot about how they tweet or whatever.
ES: I think about that a lot just because I don’t live in New York, so I’m often left feeling like an observer. I’m aware that people behave differently online and IRL, but it’s hard to parse from a distance. For what it’s worth, though, you make it look easy.
DC: I take it as a compliment when people tell me I seem laid back. Laughs. It’s all under the surface.
ES: Do you feel like that tension or anxiety manifests in your life at all? Or is it just a feeling you’re living with?
DC: It’s a blessing and a curse. Even freelancing this last year, I realized that being your own boss means you’re always thinking about work. I used to shut my mind off when the workday was done. I wasn’t constantly on social media wondering, “Is this a story?” I don’t have that now, and I resent it a lot. It’ll be Saturday night, and I’m looking at my budget, you know?
But this itchiness has provided me with a decent sort of security. I’m always working ahead and looking at the next few months… I usually know what’s happening in the next one to two months. That’s extraordinary by freelance standards but I’ve never had to deal with this sort of uncertainty before. I spent a lot of last year getting real with myself, and reminding myself that most people don’t know what’s happening month to month… I’m never in a real emergency, I just like to think that I am.
ES: Are you in therapy? Laughs.
DC: Oh yeah. I’ve been in therapy since moving to New York. It’s been about eight years.
ES: You grew up in Wisconsin, right?
DC: I was born in Wisconsin, but I mostly grew up in Illinois. I went to college in Missouri. I did the whole tour.
it’s so fun to vehemently dislike something and discover someone feels the same. It bonds you.
ES: Oh my god. You’re really out the mud. And you always wanted to be a writer?
DC: Yeah, that was maybe the one area of my life I never wavered on. I remember being at my friend’s house as a kid, and we would make up stories and write them down on Microsoft Word. Then, in middle school, I got really into writing Harry Potter fan fiction. I found one of those online communities where everyone posts their stories. It was like, “Oh, my God! Now I have a readership.” I was hooked.
ES: I’m not sure if you know this, but Friend of the Newsletter also wrote Harry Potter fan fic as a kid! What are the chances?
DC: I didn’t know that. That’s so funny. Wasn't the author of 50 Shades of Grey also a fan fic writer? It’s kind of a crazy way to start.
ES: Are there any memorable storylines from that period that you remember?
DC: So, I actually started reading Harry Potter fan fiction before I read Harry Potter.
ES: Really?
DC: Yeah — I was never drawn into the actual books themselves. The first one I wrote had like 70 chapters, and it was more like a soap opera. It was not grounded in the source material. I do remember the storylines, but I also vividly remember the ones I was reading. For me, those fan fics are as formative as a kid reading The Scarlet Letter or whatever. My dream is that one day I will bump into one of the people who wrote them.
ES: Do you like being the interviewer or the interviewee more?
DC: It depends. I’ve realized I don’t think of myself as a reporter. I went to journalism school at Mizzou, and they placed a real premium on capital-J journalism. Calling up sources, getting scoops, and doing hard news. I was never very good at that. As a Midwesterner who hates prying, I’m like, “If you don’t want to tell me something, okay, more power to you.” That’s not necessarily the sign of a good reporter.
I love having conversations with people, especially artists, about their work and what they care about. I think this sounds very self-congratulatory, but I think I have a lot of empathy. I like getting into someone’s head and trying to figure out “What does this feel like for you? Where are you coming from? What has your experience been like?” My strength is paying close attention to what you’re saying, drawing connections you may not have thought of, and figuring out how to tell your story.
It’s funny, I’ve worked in media for 10 years, and I still get a little nervous before I have to call someone up. Someone told me that would change once I had gotten a hundred bylines, but I dunno. I hate to bother people. Once you sink into a real conversation or make a real connection, though, it’s the best feeling in the world.
ES: Personally, I think the nervousness is always there. I was nervous to chat with you! But it gets easier to override.
DC: It’s a relief to hear other people feel this way, too, because it feels sort of embarrassing. Maybe you’re like me and have friends who seem fearless. They call people all day and don’t care.
ES: Unfortunately, I care very deeply. I want whoever I’m talking with to like me, or maybe respect me, which I also suspect isn’t the sign of a good journalist. Laughs. Even right now, I’d prefer if you liked me, which is an unfair expectation to put on you, because you don’t know me even a little bit.
As a Midwesterner who hates prying, I’m like, “If you don’t want to tell me something, okay, more power to you.”
DC: But I think that’s human right? The whole point of interacting with people, I think, is to form connections, form relationships. The idea of being confrontational feels unnatural. It’s unnatural to say, “So we don’t know each other, we have no rapport, but tell me the worst moment of your life.” That’s antisocial in a way. It’s not how a normal interaction goes.
ES: It’s funny, Kevin Nguyen said something similar when we chatted. He was talking about the power dynamics of journalism and how it’s an extractive process that tends to favour the reporter or the outlet.
DC: There’s a huge difference between interviewing, say, an actor who’s got decades of experience, and a college student.
I’ve started trying to explain to people how things work, because I don’t always feel the average person understands. Like, anything they say once we start the interview, I could use and put their name to it. There’s a lot of power there. I really sympathize with celebs who opt out of interviews because they feel their words get chopped up or taken out of context.
ES: Do any of these considerations explain why Hate Read is still anonymous?
DC: Oh, yeah. I think part of it comes out of Stan culture and the idea that everything feels so black and white, especially online. For a long time, the media was able to publish screeds that might have criticized a celebrity, for example, but now, the scale of the Internet means a blog post meant for maybe 100,000 people will now be seen by a million. And not all of those people are normal, they will not react normally to a critical article about how Taylor Swift’s dresses, they will find your home address… The anonymity is almost a guardrail against that. It gives someone the ability to say, “I don’t think Taylor Swift dresses well” without having their life ruined.
Also, it generates a level of paranoia because you don’t know who wrote it. It could be anyone, which is kind of funny.
ES: What have you learned about hate from doing two seasons of this?
DC: A few writers and I were talking about this over the weekend, because we got on the question, “Do you have a professional nemesis?” It’s kind of an amazing topic because, of course, everyone has one, and it’s a pretty vulnerable thing to admit. You’re telling a room of people, “This person has been living in my mind, rent-free.” It was amazing. I feel the same way about Hate Read. I think knowing why you don’t like something is a valuable way of engaging with it. It signals that you’ve evaluated its merits and what it’s supposed to do. That’s much deeper than saying, “Yeah, I liked it, it was okay.” I’d rather feel very strongly about a TV show than watch something that triggers no response. It’s really valuable to dislike things and know why you dislike them.
ES: I agree, but it’s weird growing up and realizing not everybody sees it that way. For some reason, criticism is seen as a negative. It’s often about wanting something to be better or wanting it to be great.
DC: I remember when I was working at Buzzfeed, there was a train of thought that that publication wasn’t for haters. Like, “We would never make a post dunking on X, Y, or Z.” It was almost seen as punching down. I agreed with it then, but it’s so fun to vehemently dislike something and discover someone feels the same. It bonds you. Like, “Oh, now we can chat.”
ES: Totally. Not to say it’s brave, but there is a level of bravery required to break with conventional wisdom. I didn’t love Cowboy Carter, but it doesn’t mean I’m against Beyoncé.
DC: Yeah, I think somewhere along the way we began conflating taste with morality and not “Is this piece of art interesting?” It’s moreso “Do we stan this person as a human?” And this isn’t specific to Beyoncé; we see it with a lot of celebrities. It feels very sad for the culture, because then we’re only just evaluating each other on if they are good or bad.
ES: You wrote recently about the death of the dream media job. If you could create your own role, what would it look like? It doesn’t have to be a specific title.
DC: It’s a great question. I don’t know what the title is anymore, but I know I want to work on a team. I want to be in rooms where people are coming up with ideas together. I love working with writers. I think Hate Read has been a nice exercise in playing the editor, which is what I’d eventually like to do.
But yeah, I want to come up with ideas and put something together and make something that everyone can feel a part of. What that is, what form it takes, and where it happens, I very much don't know what that looks like anymore.
ES: Does any of that include an ‘80s power-lunch vibe? Expense account?
DC: I don’t know. I know people whose social life is their work life. They have mastered it. They’re out every night, meeting people, generating ideas, making connections. I used to aspire to that, but now it seems so exhausting. I’ve also wised up to the fact that, now, so much of being a magazine editor is courting advertisers, trying to convince them of something.
As I said, I’m not a convincer. I’m a real “no worries if not” type of person.
ES: I feel the same. I hate a song and dance. If you want to do it, great. If not, that’s also great. It’s the not knowing that I find annoying.
DC: I remember I was working on a marketing team once and seeing the whole song and dance for the sales team. They’d be taking clients out for facials or to see comedy shows. Like, why don’t you just have the conversation first, and if you like each other, then go see the comedy show. I can’t do the artificiality of it.
ES: It doesn’t surprise me to hear you have marketing experience, because I think you’re brilliant at marketing your work. How important do you think it is to brand yourself right now? Whether you’re a young journalist or just doing something creative.
DC: It’s as important, if not more. You can learn how to be a better writer. You can be taught. I don’t know. To have the muscle and the stomach for talking about stuff you’re working on and putting yourself out there, risking the cringe every time, that’s hard to teach. Most people either like it or they don’t.
I don’t think journalism school really equipped me for this. We were told you need to have a website, you need to network, and you need to be on Twitter. But they didn’t say, “You need to have a brand.” You need to be able to sum up what you do. You need to figure out how to make yourself stick in people's heads so that they think of you when there’s an opening. Like the people we see succeeding, especially outside an institution like The New York Times, say, are often the ones getting the most attention.
As much as I don’t think I have a reporter's constitution, I do think this is part of it. You just gotta put yourself out there and not take things personally. I find that much easier than calling someone up and getting rejected or confronted. The marketing bounces off into space. It’s very impersonal.
Delia Cai is a writer and journalist. She lives in New York.