Rolling Stone's 773 Words of Nothing

Thursday Thoughts

I got my first magazine internship in 2006. I got first magazine job in 2008. And, ten years after I started, I left publishing for good (not counting on Substack, obviously).

I lived through so many media lifetimes in those 10 years, and, each time there was a pivot-or-die moment — aka every 2 years — the people in the industry agreed to take one big collective step towards its death. The truth of it is that the industry, especially the editorial side of it, was home to some of the most difficult, uninformed, and uncollaborative people in the world. I don’t know how that’s even possible in the world of culture reporting.

It honestly created some of the worst monsters I’ve encountered in my life. The ones high on the teeny drop of power that comes with a byline. The ones whose little content cliques spent more time circle jerking and hoarding assignments than creating anything worth while. The ones that disguised their predation as mentorship, with interns and junior editors learning the true cost of their assignments a little too late.

It wasn’t just the in-house teams who they targeted. When I was working for a music magazine, there one particularly creepy editor who would accept press invites to shows and agree to band coverage, but only if the cute little music girl publicist would agree to have drinks with him before each show.

The bad editors and lazy writers killed editorial. The “business psycho” sales bros obsessed with scale and traffic, but not strategy or community, killed its funding. Together, they successfully squeezed the last ounce of creative from the industry, including the writers with perspective and the art directors whose layouts were posters on my walls.

What we have left is a dying publishing industry that empowers staff to bloat their sites and social channels with as many as 150 pieces of content a day just to hit traffic & profit minimums. Because of that, we’re stuck with ‘vanity projects’ and fluff pieces, regurgitated news from other publishers, reposts of creator content as “news,” and endless thoughtless commentary to fill quota.

And hundreds of words of…nothing.

Case and point — Rolling Stone’s “We Wouldn’t Be Having This Conversation If Taylor Swift Was a Man”

773 words of nothing.

On the topic of one of the most famous white women in music. One who has been used as a literal alt-right totem. One who even spoke to Rolling Stone in 2019 on that very topic. One who was rightfully called out for intentionally remaining silent on socio-economic-political crises, including racism and anti-LGBTQ legislation, that directly and detrimentally affects the millions of people in her fandom. A topic she also discussed with Rolling Stone in 2019. The same fandom that, despite Taylor’s general disinterest in anything other than their cash, remains consistently and violently loyal to her through her own legal fights from body-autonomy to creative equity and beyond.

They even proactively went to war with Ticketmaster’s price gouging, as if #TeamTaylor doesn’t select the promotors and venues, and set the ticket prices.

The fan base it not all lost however, making a decided turn toward forcing accountability on their queen via an open letter regarding Taylor’s friendship and rumored romantic relationship with profound bozo and legacy racist Matty Healy:

“From engaging in racist remarks, making offensive jokes, and admitting to watching degrading pornography in which people of color are being humiliated and assaulted, his actions contribute to the perpetuation of hate, stereotypes, and objectification, which targets and hurts some people from the Jewish, Black, Chinese, Hawaiian, Inuit, LGBTQ+ communities, as well as women.” - #SpeakUpNow (Twitter)

The article’s writer, Angie Martoccio, is one of the not good ones I mentioned earlier. The kind that can’t separate themselves from audience. That couldn’t temporarily mute her own very public fandom of Taylor for a moment to consider editorial voice, vision, or even story. Have the content farmhands forgot that it’s OK to pause and think before posting? To consider the collective editorial? Maybe its just the instant gratification of being the quickest to post that causes this?

You have her referring to Healy’s Nazi salutes (plural) as part of his “artistry.” You have her writing off the numerous offenses quoted in the #SpeakUpNow statement above as him being “just a hot sleazeball who wants Oasis back together.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve dated a lot of guys who fit that description.” - Angie

Girl. No.

I’ve dated my fair share of grimey, dirty fingernailed, Bart Simpson tattooed indie band boy sleezeballs, but they weren’t Nazi’s, or homophobes, or violent, babe. If they publicly were, I wouldn’t have been with them. If they secretly were, I obviously wouldn’t have known, and, therefore wouldn’t have been able to compare them to someone who publicly was.

See how that works?

Martoccio is adamant that both she and Taylor have no responsibility in their decisions to seek relationships men like Matty and deserve no grief for dating them. And that anyone, who, like, says anything, like, about that, is, um, not a feminist. Because, um, patriarchy.

Inspired by Angie, I’m going to be a lazy writer girl today. Our friend Chat GPT¹ will handle the rest of this post:

Some white women may skirt responsibility within the context of white supremacy by adopting certain strategies. One way is by positioning themselves as helpless victims or "hands-off" observers when it comes to the harm caused by the men they date, marry, or raise. By distancing themselves from accountability, they evade acknowledging their own complicity in perpetuating oppressive systems.

Thx.

1. GPT actually pulled the UNO reverse card of laziness with this response.