The replies to this are so telling. Taylor isn’t saying the actual entertainment story itself is important, she’s saying *the story is an important vehicle for indoctrination into right wing thinking for an otherwise liberal audience*. But people are so high-minded and obtuse they can’t see that. - ThreadSky

leahreich.com • 2 days ago

The replies to this are so telling. Taylor isn’t saying the actual entertainment story itself is important, she’s saying *the story is an important vehicle for indoctrination into right wing thinking for an otherwise liberal audience*. But people are so high-minded and obtuse they can’t see that.

Reposted from Taylor Lorenz

I wrote about how right wing creators are dominating the coverage of Lively vs Baldoni and how it has become a massive growth engine for the right wing media pipeline.

Liberal creators are either ignoring the biggest story in pop culture or regurgitating Candace Owens’ coverage to their audiences.

Comments

matgopack.bsky.social•2 days ago

I agree that this is important and a good call out - I think (judging solely by my immediate reaction to it myself), it might be the framing as 'biggest story in pop culture at the moment' that people might be reacting to? Vs something like "a big story"

Semantics, but it's how people react I find

matgopack.bsky.social•2 days ago

IE people read something, if they disagree with a minor point or framing of it that is what sticks in our minds and then drives the immediate reaction (especially if feeling defensive about it)

leahreich.com•2 days ago

I totally agree. I have a lot of thoughts on this (shocker) – in some ways writers/speakers/public figures can do better, but in some ways we all have to take a step back and learn to not let our immediate response drive our overall reaction

pjkool.bsky.social•2 days ago

They are all media strumpets and grifters.

leahreich.com•2 days ago

People can simultaneously care about the “actual” news AND be interested in stuff you think is stupid or pointless. And often it’s the latter that provides a shared interest with others which itself allows for connecting over deeper, more important topics.

leahreich.com•2 days ago

Just like young men get radicalized first by some more “superficial” common interest and THEN by a deeper indoctrination, so do women. The point is that liberal media ignores this whole process.

leahreich.com•2 days ago

This reminds me of experiences I had while doing my PhD in sociology. I did an ethnography on a women-only gym in a rich Orange Count, CA suburb and my entire seminar sneered at me. One student said she wouldn't be caught dead doing a project like that.

leahreich.com•2 days ago

Or when I expressed interest in the sociology of fashion and someone in my program said, "Why would you want to study that when there are so many real problems you could focus on?" Narrow-minded thinking is such a plague, and I say that as a self-professed snob who doesn't get a lot of pop culture.

leahreich.com•2 days ago

I even saw this when I worked at Instagram, which is literally a vehicle for engaging in and creating popular culture! Most people want to connect over fun things! Shared interests! That's the conduit for all this other stuff!!!

giromide.online•2 days ago

I would love to read that! Having visited there a few times, I have a few guesses as to what might be in your ethnography.

leahreich.com•2 days ago

ha! I don't know where it is now, it was almost 20 years ago so it's probably on some external hard drive I have shoved in a storage bin. But I did my PhD at UC Irvine so I spent a lot of time in those suburbs and can easily recreate it from memory

giromide.online•2 days ago

Let me guess. Was covert and overt Christian signaling a feature?

absolutereality.blog•2 days ago

I'm putting together a list of pop culture content creators with a feminist/progressive lean thanks to @ophiedokie.bsky.social who is quoted in Taylor's article. Liberal media as a top-down monolith just isn't a thing, so we need to spread it from the bottom-up.

leahreich.com•2 days ago

I love this because I'm writing about something unrelated but also totally related: How we need to work together to do community building and reconfigure the internet/web in a more human-sized way, away from huge tech platforms we can never control.

absolutereality.blog•2 days ago

I've been thinking about how to do a two-pronged approach with online and offline content. A progressive weekly leaflet formatted for a home printer anyone can print out and leave around town, in break rooms, and with willing retail shops and restaurants would be amazing.

absolutereality.blog•2 days ago

It doesn't have to be national, in fact it's probably better if people in each city/metro area/region did this themselves. I started using the hashtag #MuskMessaging for people to crowdsource ideas for wording, visuals, etc. but open to other hashtag/crowdsource ideas.

ophiedokie.bsky.social•2 days ago

YES - i mentioned this at the end of the episode of Power User that Taylor had me on. We don't have the algorithmic power behind us, but we absolutely can create our own ecosystems, suggest and recommend each other, share our audiences with each other & trying to find stuff outside algo recs

leahreich.com•2 days ago

Ok I also love all of this. I am genuinely writing about this stuff – sometimes in my newsletter but more in a book proposal I'm finishing up – so I would love to chat more about it with all of you!

ophiedokie.bsky.social•2 days ago

Just gonna add a few more since im still thinking about it lol -- Princess Weekes i think is also a great pull for this list, Olurinatti also doing fantastic work (esp the recent vids about Aziz Anzari and Meg Thee Stallion!!), also adore Shanspeare's work as well

whetstone.bsky.social•2 days ago

Taylor is such an interesting figure. Like I get how she really bothers people, and don't always disagree, *and yet* she is also extremely perceptive about a bunch of stuff and gets absolutely insane pushback that's very illuminating about the people who are pushing back.

leahreich.com•2 days ago

She is perceptive. She’s also a very nice person! (Hi Taylor, it’s been forever)

giromide.online•2 days ago

This could be a second Gamergate, and that's a bad thing.

giromide.online•2 days ago

Maybe it's a third Gamergate, because I think similar rightwing indoctrination was tested out during the Depp/Heard trial.

giromide.online•2 days ago

Meanwhile, the liberal Democratic governor of California sits with Kirk and adjusts the transphobia dial while watching his polling numbers in the Central Valley.

potter4ever.bsky.social•2 days ago

she (and younger people generally) are asking us to understand complexity - to go a bit meta on the topic - to take a wider view. We've been *trained* to view things in the binary (hehe) and narrow. good/bad. liberal/conservative. Democrat/Republican. red/blue.

leahreich.com•2 days ago

That’s also what I ask people in my work, both tech jobs and in my writing. It’s why I get so frustrated when I see people refuse to do it.

potter4ever.bsky.social•2 days ago

have you written about our refusal to engage with complex topics?

leahreich.com•2 days ago

I have! Not always in such an explicit way but yes, for a long time.

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