The answer: “This celebrated American novelist has never seen the popular game show Jeopardy!”
The question: “Who is Joyce Carol Oates?”
Oates, the author of novels including Them, Blonde, and Fox, earlier this month revealed on the social platform X—where she maintains a prolific and often pugnacious presence—that she has never tuned in to watch Art Fleming, Alex Trebek, or Ken Jennings.
An X user asked Oates, “Ms. Oates, are you aware that you were the answer to a $2,000 question on Jeopardy yesterday?” She replied, “thank you but no, I'm afraid that I have never seen Jeopardy. my name sometimes shows up in crossword puzzles in need of vowels.”
She called back to her original post on Sunday, writing, “‘Honestly, it’s wild that there’s an American that’s never seen Jeopardy! How do you live in the US or Canada and not at least catch part of an episode?’ a fan wrote.”
In a follow-up post, she wrote, “not a good year. chided as ‘the cause of everything that is wrong in the world’ (verbatim Twitter quote) for not knowing that Cracker Barrel was not just a processed cheese for sale in the part of the grocery store not reserved for quality cheeses but also a franchise restaurant lacking a Michelin star, chided for disrespecting E M on his own trillion-dollar platform, & now chided for not having seen a quiz show which evidently everyone has seen & loved. #BadPerson.”
Her mention of “E M” was a reference to a viral post she made earlier this month in which she wrote, “So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates— scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend’s or relative’s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the ‘most wealthy person in the world.’”
Elon Musk responded, “Oates is a liar and delights in being mean. Not a good human.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
