WaPo Is a Kindergarten
With all apologies to actual kindergarteners
I don’t know what’s going on at the Washington Post these days, but it’s no longer the newspaper that took down Nixon.
The journos are not okay. They’re now unleashing online outrage mobs on each other, and it can start with something as harmless as a joke:
This might not be the funniest joke that’s ever been told, but it’s a joke. It’s not hate speech, or violence, or any of that stuff. It’s just a joke.
Apparently a WaPo journo named Dave Weigel thought so too, because he retweeted it. Maybe Weigel thought it was funny and/or clever. Maybe he thought it was dumb, and he was drawing attention to it ironically for his journo pals: “Get a load of this misogynistic hayseed!” I have no idea what Weigel’s motives might have been, and I wouldn’t have known or cared if this hadn’t happened:
Felicia Sonmez also works for WaPo. So here we have a newspaper journalist publicly scolding another newspaper journalist for sharing a joke. Sonmez has spent the last few days obsessively seething about it, and she’s clearly trying to get Weigel fired.
Weigel isn’t a very good reporter, but he’s no dummy. He knows who holds the power in his industry, and he knows who his colleagues are eager to villainize. So what happened next was drearily predictable:
Like the good little drone he is, Weigel groveled for forgiveness:
He did not cause any harm, of course. I suspect he knows this. But he can’t protest. He can’t make an appeal to equanimity and reason, given the nature of the industry that pays him. He’s trapped in a hell of his own devising, and I’d be lying if I told you I’m not enjoying it.
Meanwhile, yet another WaPo reporter named Taylor Lorenz has finally locked down her Twitter account:
Last week Lorenz wrote a story about the online reaction to the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial, and she claimed that she had reached out to a couple of YouTubers for comment. But the YouTubers say she never contacted them. This is a big no-no in journalism. You can’t just claim you tried to contact the subject of a story if you didn’t. Or at least that was a journalistic standard, back when WaPo still had those.
Lorenz always centers herself as a victim of the people she victimizes, classic crybullying, but I think this is the first time she’s actually had to go into hiding.
The journos are out of control. They’ve always behaved like spoiled children, but now they’ve run out of outside targets and are turning on each other. As more and more Americans tune them out, they’re destroying their own industry from within.
Tee-hee!
Are you a fan of Joe Biden? Do you enjoy watching late-night talk shows? Of course not. Nonetheless, this is happening:
I suppose this is fitting. The dumbest president ever will appear on the dumbest talk show ever. Nobody will watch, and nothing will be gained. Because it’s 2022.
During the George Floyd riots two summers ago, a couple of fancy Manhattan lawyers named Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman were arrested for throwing a Molotov cocktail at an empty cop car. For a while there, it looked like the woke left might actually suffer the consequences of their actions.
Nope! Fortunately for these two geniuses, they were rioting for the approved reasons and now they’re catching a break:
Laws only apply to bad people. Social justice is good, so torching a police vehicle in the name of social justice is good. Unless you approve of cops killing black people? What are you, a racist?
Pop Tarts are gay now. I mean, they always were, but now they’re out gay.
“YOU ARE NEVER ALONE! NOW BUY THESE PLANK-LIKE PASTRIES YOU CAN HEAT UP IN YOUR TOASTER! SHOVE ‘EM IN YOUR MOUTH, NOT THAT THERE’S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT! AND IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THAT WE’RE ALSO FAT-ACCEPTANCE ALLIES!”
This isn’t hurting anybody, I guess. But has anyone ever been empowered by a box of toaster pastries? Will a homophobic bigot be converted into an LGBTQ+ ally after strolling through the breakfast foods aisle at the grocery store? Do you actually believe a faceless multinational food manufacturer cares about you as a human being?
I do kinda like the brown sugar & cinnamon ones, though.
Lost some sleep over the weekend binging Severance, and I can’t believe something so good is on Apple Plus. This cross between The Office and The Prisoner is one of the only “mystery box” shows that actually seems to have answers to the questions it raises.
I say “seems” because by the end of the first season, the viewer still doesn’t really know the answers to the big questions. Why is any of this happening? Who’s doing this to these people? But we’re given a glimpse of how this fictional world operates, we actually care about the characters who are trapped in it, and it doesn’t appear to be just a big pile of Lost-like weirdness. This story is going somewhere. I hope.
Also, John Turturro and Christopher Walken are… Well, I don’t want to spoil anything.
It’s also wryly funny that this satire of corporate brainwashing and the horrors of technology is the product of… Apple Inc.
Severance: It makes the cut!
Alright, have a good Monday or whatever.
Bezos should have just bought Gawker when it folded. It would have been cheaper.
As for the "Rage Against the Poors" getting off with a couple of years that they probably won't even have to serve out, while confused grandmas who wandered into the Capitol Building on Jan. 6th are still waiting for their day in court just demonstrates that there are two justice systems in this country.
I must say, The Taylor Lorenz Decade is not shaping up as well as could be expected for Taylor Lorenz. Step it up, people! don't make me come back there and literally shake at you!