James Frey Thanks "Approval Matrix"

2nd\NE Quadrant The Approval Matrix

Post-Oprah, Frey was a pariah — constantly attacked in the media, scorned by the publishing world, the recipient of angry e-mails from fans, the target of a handful of lawsuits. How did he get his groove back? Well, in part from a visit to Norman Mailer, who broke out the boxing metaphors to tell Frey, "You should prepare to take huge shots every time out because they’ll never stop."

But Frey also found courage from … New York's Approval Matrix! In January 2007, Frey was with [artist Richard] Prince at his house in upstate New York when Prince began flipping through a recent issue of New York magazine.

“I had been named the most highbrow despicable person of 2006 on the Approval Matrix,” Frey recalls. “And Richard looked, and he was like, ‘Dude! Check this out!’ And I sort of went, ‘Oh, dude.’ He was like, ‘What do you mean? That’s great! I wish they would call me that.’”
-- NYMag