My hope is that the Last Ditch story will finally give progressives space to call out the toxic elements within lefty culture that Woke 1 allowed to fester and metastasize. These people are not social justice warriors, they are awful narcissists who use the language of social justice to gain some semblance of power. They are deleterious to the movement and we need to be able to call bullshit.
Agreed, but also, it's not just that leftist movements have a tendency to elevate terrible individuals, but that they broadly accept blatant racism and antisemitism (genuine suffering dismissed as "white tears", "Zionists" banned from a business establishment as a matter of course); dilute and diminish their own purposes by picking up extraneous causes like social justice lint rollers; and are comically mismanaged and therefore struggle to accomplish anything of practical value.
All of those issues have been extensively documented and understood by "moderate" liberals and the right for over a decade, but I expect that many of the people on the left most directly impacted would rather die than read a Bari Weiss substack. Having them concentrated and unavoidably self-evident in a single viral story from a traditional, mainstream news outlet may provide a permission structure for more voices on the left to discuss them.
I’ve written and edited quite a lot of silly stories in my day, sometimes in the hopes that they would go viral, so I’m going to speak up for what Jeremiah calls “pure slop” and stories of “questionable news value.”
Part of a publication’s mission — arguably its core mission — is to entertain its readers. The Cut’s viral essays are usually about money, love, sex, and/or parenting, in other words core topics of interest to its readership. These essays spark discussion online because a lot of people want to talk about this stuff, just like a lot of people want to talk about Dolezial-style race frauds, woke politics, etc etc.
You can dismiss these interests as prurient and say we should all be reading, like, the minutes from our local city council or whatever. But often, these “slop” stories are viral because they tap into fairly deep currents around identity, shame, guilt, or what have you. You can argue sometimes these stories lack literary merit or that occasionally editors exploit the writers, but I find the sort of blanket dismissal expressed here to be elitist, in a bad way. “Real journalism is covering topics so *important* that the reader is bored to tears” is an old-school attitude that I thought we had left behind. (And frankly I’m surprised to find this sentiment being expressed by Jeremiah, who I usually enjoy.)
I don't think these stories are valueless - I have been *very* entertained by the saga of the Last Ditch. I am a proud connoisseur of The Cut's essays, and frankly I write about things that fall into that category.
But at the same time, I do think actual journalism is more important than entertainment (which we have a massive surplus of), and is also in much more danger, so I'm eager to figure out ways to keep it alive.
I think we agree on a lot of stuff in this department! To me though, “actual journalism” is sort of a weird (and potentially fake) category… the Last Ditch story was a reported piece on a controversy that made new information public, it seems like a canonical example of Actual Journalism, right?
I think conservative media already recognized that this kind of reporting is catnip for both the laptop class and those who resent them. The interesting thing about the globe story is that it opens the Overton for struggling mainstream outlets to run the same playbook — and frankly, great!
Good for business, good for truth, good for liberalism. Let’s get after it. Doesn’t even have to be critical — best part about the globe story was that it just let the facts speak for themselves. One could have done a similar story comparing Socialism 2026 with Canada’s similar event from a few months prior. Just the facts. The oh so juicy, irresistible, can-you-believe-she-just-said-that facts. Lot of opportunity for y’all at the Argument here!
I'm surprised you and your circle hadn't heard of Langley's song. The entire album is worth a listen. She's a talented artist, not just label-boosted pop country. Wrote that song with Miranda Lambert, herself an under-recognized icon, based on a story of Miranda getting pulled over in a convertible when she had a kangaroo in the front seat of her car. In WA and ID where I work and play it's all over the radio + IG + line dancing bars. Though I suspect there aren't as many of those in NYC.
Guy who hits self in face with hammer thinking it will make him better looking (or something) gets charged with felony sexual assault - I am shocked, SHOCKED. I cannot believe I am going to type these words, but: perhaps it’s time to stop and think about stuff like hitting yourself in the face with a blunt object. That’s not normal behavior that sane people do.
And now to tie it in with the sagas of the lefty lesbian bar and Elizabeth Gilbert: those who make an ostentatious parade of how socially conscious they are OR how very spiritual they are, tend to be…personality disordered if not outright sociopathic. If someone feels the need to tell you, over and over, that they’re a good person, with pure motives, etc. - do yourself a favor and walk away.
And under NO circumstances contribute to their GoFundMe or Venmo or CashGrab or whatever they have set up.
"gender-expansive lesbian who uses he/him pronouns named Soe Noire"
My understanding is that this is a man who claims to be a lesbian. The he/him pronouns makes no sense to me.
I've experience this sort of thing before. I went to one of those "lets all talk rationally about politics" meetings and met a guy (with a thick beard and profoundly masculine features) who claimed to be a trans man. There was no way that was true, because it would mean he's a woman who transitioned to become a man. But there isn't enough testosterone in the world.
Later I learned a little more and figured it out. He was a man who decided he was a woman, but later decided he was a man. I assumed this would just put him back to square one, making him a man. But no, by his reconning, he was a trans man. I also learned he worked at a nonprofit dealing with trans issues, so ...
Look, I'm as "live and let live" as they come. But while I'm fine with people leading whatever life they choose, I don't have to be a cast member in their stage show. And that's all the lesbian bar story is. Drama queens (forgive the pun) who live for outrage and confrontation. I'm sure this isn't the first dustup at this bar. Should newspapers cover this sort of thing? To be fair, it would be hard to avoid covering it. But I would hope serious reporters would do so with the appropriate sense of "this is bat shit crazy."
On “Choosin’ Texas:” Great news for the streaming platforms! …erm, what has Ms Langley’s take from the platforms’ been during this time, and how does that compare to Whitney’s and Elton’s take from the “platforms” of their time (radio & album sales)?
No question, there’s WAY more music now. That’s an un-alloyed good in my view; if it means that even the most successful can’t achieve “rich-ness,” that’s at least weird and might be bad for the overall economics of music as a profession.
My hope is that the Last Ditch story will finally give progressives space to call out the toxic elements within lefty culture that Woke 1 allowed to fester and metastasize. These people are not social justice warriors, they are awful narcissists who use the language of social justice to gain some semblance of power. They are deleterious to the movement and we need to be able to call bullshit.
Agreed, but also, it's not just that leftist movements have a tendency to elevate terrible individuals, but that they broadly accept blatant racism and antisemitism (genuine suffering dismissed as "white tears", "Zionists" banned from a business establishment as a matter of course); dilute and diminish their own purposes by picking up extraneous causes like social justice lint rollers; and are comically mismanaged and therefore struggle to accomplish anything of practical value.
All of those issues have been extensively documented and understood by "moderate" liberals and the right for over a decade, but I expect that many of the people on the left most directly impacted would rather die than read a Bari Weiss substack. Having them concentrated and unavoidably self-evident in a single viral story from a traditional, mainstream news outlet may provide a permission structure for more voices on the left to discuss them.
Love the "social justice lint rollers".
<Lady Gaga, selling out yet another giga-successful global tour> i am so cancelled rn
I’ve written and edited quite a lot of silly stories in my day, sometimes in the hopes that they would go viral, so I’m going to speak up for what Jeremiah calls “pure slop” and stories of “questionable news value.”
Part of a publication’s mission — arguably its core mission — is to entertain its readers. The Cut’s viral essays are usually about money, love, sex, and/or parenting, in other words core topics of interest to its readership. These essays spark discussion online because a lot of people want to talk about this stuff, just like a lot of people want to talk about Dolezial-style race frauds, woke politics, etc etc.
You can dismiss these interests as prurient and say we should all be reading, like, the minutes from our local city council or whatever. But often, these “slop” stories are viral because they tap into fairly deep currents around identity, shame, guilt, or what have you. You can argue sometimes these stories lack literary merit or that occasionally editors exploit the writers, but I find the sort of blanket dismissal expressed here to be elitist, in a bad way. “Real journalism is covering topics so *important* that the reader is bored to tears” is an old-school attitude that I thought we had left behind. (And frankly I’m surprised to find this sentiment being expressed by Jeremiah, who I usually enjoy.)
I don't think these stories are valueless - I have been *very* entertained by the saga of the Last Ditch. I am a proud connoisseur of The Cut's essays, and frankly I write about things that fall into that category.
But at the same time, I do think actual journalism is more important than entertainment (which we have a massive surplus of), and is also in much more danger, so I'm eager to figure out ways to keep it alive.
I think we agree on a lot of stuff in this department! To me though, “actual journalism” is sort of a weird (and potentially fake) category… the Last Ditch story was a reported piece on a controversy that made new information public, it seems like a canonical example of Actual Journalism, right?
I think conservative media already recognized that this kind of reporting is catnip for both the laptop class and those who resent them. The interesting thing about the globe story is that it opens the Overton for struggling mainstream outlets to run the same playbook — and frankly, great!
Good for business, good for truth, good for liberalism. Let’s get after it. Doesn’t even have to be critical — best part about the globe story was that it just let the facts speak for themselves. One could have done a similar story comparing Socialism 2026 with Canada’s similar event from a few months prior. Just the facts. The oh so juicy, irresistible, can-you-believe-she-just-said-that facts. Lot of opportunity for y’all at the Argument here!
I'm surprised you and your circle hadn't heard of Langley's song. The entire album is worth a listen. She's a talented artist, not just label-boosted pop country. Wrote that song with Miranda Lambert, herself an under-recognized icon, based on a story of Miranda getting pulled over in a convertible when she had a kangaroo in the front seat of her car. In WA and ID where I work and play it's all over the radio + IG + line dancing bars. Though I suspect there aren't as many of those in NYC.
“viral slop stories that generate outrage and drama, which bring in eyeballs and subsidize more serious journalism for the rest of the publication.”
Wasn’t this sort of what Buzzfeed tried 10 years ago?
I think BuzzFeed was worse. The bar story is silly and inconsequential but the write up was still very good. Better than what BF was churning out.
Guy who hits self in face with hammer thinking it will make him better looking (or something) gets charged with felony sexual assault - I am shocked, SHOCKED. I cannot believe I am going to type these words, but: perhaps it’s time to stop and think about stuff like hitting yourself in the face with a blunt object. That’s not normal behavior that sane people do.
And now to tie it in with the sagas of the lefty lesbian bar and Elizabeth Gilbert: those who make an ostentatious parade of how socially conscious they are OR how very spiritual they are, tend to be…personality disordered if not outright sociopathic. If someone feels the need to tell you, over and over, that they’re a good person, with pure motives, etc. - do yourself a favor and walk away.
And under NO circumstances contribute to their GoFundMe or Venmo or CashGrab or whatever they have set up.
"gender-expansive lesbian who uses he/him pronouns named Soe Noire"
My understanding is that this is a man who claims to be a lesbian. The he/him pronouns makes no sense to me.
I've experience this sort of thing before. I went to one of those "lets all talk rationally about politics" meetings and met a guy (with a thick beard and profoundly masculine features) who claimed to be a trans man. There was no way that was true, because it would mean he's a woman who transitioned to become a man. But there isn't enough testosterone in the world.
Later I learned a little more and figured it out. He was a man who decided he was a woman, but later decided he was a man. I assumed this would just put him back to square one, making him a man. But no, by his reconning, he was a trans man. I also learned he worked at a nonprofit dealing with trans issues, so ...
Look, I'm as "live and let live" as they come. But while I'm fine with people leading whatever life they choose, I don't have to be a cast member in their stage show. And that's all the lesbian bar story is. Drama queens (forgive the pun) who live for outrage and confrontation. I'm sure this isn't the first dustup at this bar. Should newspapers cover this sort of thing? To be fair, it would be hard to avoid covering it. But I would hope serious reporters would do so with the appropriate sense of "this is bat shit crazy."
On “Choosin’ Texas:” Great news for the streaming platforms! …erm, what has Ms Langley’s take from the platforms’ been during this time, and how does that compare to Whitney’s and Elton’s take from the “platforms” of their time (radio & album sales)?
No question, there’s WAY more music now. That’s an un-alloyed good in my view; if it means that even the most successful can’t achieve “rich-ness,” that’s at least weird and might be bad for the overall economics of music as a profession.
The Claude Pop song... well, pops.
At least I'll get a jaunty tune as I'm turned into a paperclip.