The Perverse Thrill of Having Your Room Rated by RoomRater

Thank you for approving of my house, stranger.

On Wednesday morning, I appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to discuss my new novel How Lucky, which is available wherever books are sold this very second. It was a fun conversation with Willie Geist, Claire McCaskill and Mike Barnicle, and it featured the following screenshot, which is the sort of screenshot one appreciates when one is trying to sell books.

But the highlight of the appearance was, without question, having our front room featured by Room Rater.

For those who do not know, Room Rater is a pandemic-specific Twitter account that assigns scores to the setup each television news program guest has for their interview appearances. Ten is the highest score. Zero is the lowest. You do not want a zero. The Washington Post did a fun story last year about how Room Rater had become oddly…