"There’s a classic Gen Z nihilism. My generation has spent a lot of time in a sort of destabilizing, regressive wave."

Said Rayne Fisher-Quann, 22, "an independent writer focused on girlhood and identity."

Quoted in "Goodbye, Feminist Blogs. Hello, Gen Z Content Creators? Young women are more feminist than ever, as are big brands and Hollywood franchises. But what happened to the online community blogs and zines once offered?" (NYT).

Also new at the NYT today: "Jezebel, the Oral History: 'There Was This Riotous Sense of Fun'/The site defined an era of feminism for millions of readers. According to its editors and writers, it was also an exhilarating place to work."

I can see how efforts to maintain a "riotous sense of fun" would tend to devolve into "a destabilizing, regressive wave."

"Today is yet another really rough day in media; dozens of my Vice colleagues are being laid off globally and we just got news..."

"... that Jezebel, where I worked for years, is being shut down.

Writes Anna Merlan, on X.

The New Yorker just published a big article about Jezebel:

 

I only skimmed it. 

I guess I'm afraid of finding something about me.

"The breeding kink—intense sexual attraction to the idea of getting pregnant, or getting someone else pregnant—is having a moment right now."

"A deluge of viral TikToks of users are professing their yearning to breed and be bred. A porn creator told Vice this week about a recent surge in demand for 'breeding' content. There is quite literally a WebMD article on breeding fetishism, not to mention an entire genre of horror movies and documentaries about unethical fertility doctors secretly fathering hundreds of kids. And the discovery of Elon Musk’s eighth and ninth (known) children on Wednesday led the richest man in the world to triumphantly tweet: 'Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis,' and 'I hope you have big families and congrats to those who already do!'

I'm reading "Does Elon Musk Have a 'Breeding Kink?'/To ascertain whether or not Musk has a breeding fetish is to wade into territory that I'm not sure I have the stomach for—but I'm doing this for journalism" by Kylie Cheung (Jezebel).

Cheung answers her question:

"Boy, Blowing Up A DNC Media Hit Job On Scott Walker In Realtime Sure Is Fun!"

"The Latest Attempt To Launch A New Walker Smear Crashes & Burns On The Launch Pad. And There Was Much Rejoicing."

As it so happens, this Jezebel writer, Natasha Vargas-Cooper, either didn't do any research at all on this piece or she deliberately left out the whole story.

As it so happens, there is a pretty damn good reason Scott Walker deleted these [sexual assault] reporting requirements.

He did it because - get this! - the University of Wisconsin *asked* him to.

(Via Instapundit.)

"Oh, dear police department, we know, we know. We know we look like victims. We know we present as easy goddamn prey."

"How lovely to be reminded by the police department. What a nice opportunity to think about the fact that none of the women I know who have been raped have ever reported it. Not one!"

Jezebel ravages the University of Wisconsin—Madison Police Department for its "Shedding the Victim Persona: Staying Safe on Campus."

Column titled "Drunk Female Guests Are the Gravest Threat to Fraternities" not appreciated.

Not by Jezebel.

There are so many things wrong... that I blacked out for a second and missed some of the actual good points he probably thinks he's making about fraternities keeping everyone safe by getting drunk guests home rather than feeding them more alcohol or raping them. Like, for example, this paragraph:

And please, look out for each other. Do not let a drunk brother take a drunk female to his bedroom. During parties wet or dry, let the water flow – proper hydration and dilution is the best remedy for over consumption. Make sure there are filled water pitchers everywhere. Press them on intoxicated guests even if they resist.

This paragraph is actually smart and good, except for the part where he calls a woman a "female," as though she were a specimen or the subject of a Chris Brown Tweet. If the whole piece were that paragraph I'd be impressed, but a little curious as to why the piece was only a single paragraph long.

Not by Forbes:

The Forbes website took the column down almost immediately, telling the New York Daily News that Frezza is no longer a contributor for the site.

"This doesn’t surprise me at all. Passed over the BW and hired a WW./Mixed emotions as Jezebel gets new editor."

Tweets Angry Black Lady about "Mixed emotions as Jezebel gets new editor."

"I am tired of being called a shrieking harridan for pointing out inequalities so tangible and blatant that they are regularly codified into law..."

" I am tired of being told to provide documentation of inequality...."

As though feminist academics haven't filled books (decades of books) with answers to that shit already.... I am so fucking fatigued by this anti-intellectual repetitive shell game...

A famous man making sexist jokes on a primetime awards show watched by millions of people is so banal and status-quo in our culture, that to me—a woman professionally committed to detecting and calling bullshit on sexism—it just feels like a drop in the bucket. Luckily, there's nothing better than a depressing dose of apathy to remind you to FUCK THE BUCKET....

Just some item about the Academy Awards show over at Jezebel. I thought you should know.

"Like-A-Hug is a wearable social media vest that allows for hugs to be given via Facebook, bringing us closer despite physical distance."

"The vest inflates when friends 'Like' a photo, video, or status update on the wearer's wall, thereby allowing us to feel the warmth, encouragement, support, or love that we feel when we receive hugs. Hugs can also be sent back to the original sender by squeezing the vest and deflating it."

Ha ha.

Via Jezebel via New York Magazine, both of which seem to assume it's a real device intended seriously. I say seem because I acknowledge the possibility that Jezebel and New York Magazine have a drier sense of humor than does Melissa Kit Chow. Judging from the clunky sarcasm Jezebel and New York openly aim at Chow, I'd say the possibility that there's an underlayer of subtle humor is low.

"Women Are Awkwardly Attempting to Go to Lunch With New Internet Friends."

"Let's just be honest for a second: making female friends is hard in a new city."

You want to be like, "Hey, want to get a drink sometime?" and then you don't because you're scared, and then a few days later she Tweets something about how much she likes Dane Cook or how much she hates abortion, and you're like "FUUUUUU," and then you just gestate sadly at your computer until the next person you sorta-know invites you out and you go girl-hunting once again.

The link goes to a Jezebel item, which links to this NYT article. 

By the way, there's a very extensive discussion about abortion in the comments to yesterday's post about Condoleeza Rice, including lots of participation by me (starting about halfway down).

ADDED: Gestate?

Penis-print leggings deemed "cute."

Emily, disagreeing with Jezebel:

I mean, not as much from a distance, but when you get close so you can really see the penises, you know? I'll put the close-up view at the bottom of this article so those of you who are all into "having jobs" can keep them.

Maybe it's a testament to my overwhelming love of penis? I think of them sort of like golden retrievers -- friendly, reliable, enthusiastic. And who wouldn't want leggings covered in golden retrievers? CUTE!

For the best view of the (subtle?!) print, go here and use the magnifying glass.

I know... cute... magnifying glass... it's not really what you want to hear when you hear from women in cock-praising department.

Jezebel finds it "icky" to talk about what Malia and Sasha are wearing...

... because "They're not walking the red carpet, they're walking to school. They deserve privacy — and part of privacy is the protection from undue scrutiny."

And yet Malia and Sasha are not walking to school in the photograph that Jezebel publishes to illustrate its prissy faux-outrage. They are appearing alongside the President of the United States and the First Lady at a photo-op staged in front of Christmas decorations, and they are wearing bright-colored satiny dresses and smiling graciously at children dressed as Christmas elves. So there they are: political props.

But we're not supposed to talk about them because "They're not walking the red carpet, they're walking to school"? What they are doing in the very photo you're showing is far beyond a mere walk on the red carpet. They are walking in public, for political purposes, in the most conspicuous possible way. You can still argue that because they are children, we shouldn't talk about their clothes. But you'll have to, you know, actually make that argument.

I feel free to talk about their clothes. Their clothes are pretty, and they look adorable. There now, how "icky" is that?

By the way, is it okay to talk about Chelsea Clinton yet? Because she's — what? — 31? Remember when she said "I'm sorry, I don't talk to the press and that applies to you" to a child? In 2009, when she was 29. Now, suddenly, she is the press. That was clever, no? Going from you can never talk about me to now, I'm going to talk about everyone else in an instant. Now, she's going to lead a "purposely public life," now that she's controlling the cameras. She's a celebrity on purpose now. Before she was just a victim of circumstance, the child of a President, and yet she was paraded for political purposes whenever it served the interests of the President.



Oh, but no, no, no... you can't criticize now. Because look: a child! The child emits a halo of immunity protecting the most powerful man in the world.

I'm not saying we should mock the children, though. Just mock the President... and his wife... for their use of children — when that's what they do — and for everything else that flits through your icky mind.

Calling a miscarried baby a "fetus" or "fetal corpse."

At a memorial service for their lost child, the Duggar family distributed photographs showing a closeup of a parent's hand holding the tiny feet — "There is no foot too small that it cannot leave an imprint on this world" — and holding the tiny hand. Someone at the service tweeted the photographs. Noted. I have nothing to say about whether any of that is a good idea. I'm only making a blog post to show you  the way 2 prominent websites talked about it. I'm adding boldface. First, TMZ:

The family from TLC's "19 Kids & Counting" chose a unique way to commemorate the life of their 20th child, who passed away this week in a miscarriage -- they took an artsy picture of the fetal corpse ... and distributed it at the memorial.

And Jezebel:

Few among us have never made a judgey comment about the Duggars, however everyone's trying to be sensitive in light of the sad news that Michelle Duggar suffered a miscarriage. But now there's this bit of holy shit: TMZ is running dead fetus photos that the Duggars distributed at Jubilee Shalom Duggar's memorial service today.

They had to say "fetus" (or "fetal corpse"), didn't they? Why? It seems like a strange migration of abortion-rights ideology into a place where it doesn't belong.

I would think that even strong proponents of access to abortion would reject the use of the word "fetus" in the context of a family holding a memorial service and declaring that the deceased being left its mark on the world. Strong supporters of abortion rights accord a woman maximum control over the question of what that entity inside her womb is.

That's why Obama said "That's above my pay grade" and why the Supreme Court said "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."

Mrs. Duggar obviously believed this was a baby.

"How feminist blogs like Jezebel gin up page views by exploiting women's worst tendencies."

Emily Gould in Slate:

As of this writing, [last week's Jezebel post titled "The Daily Show's Woman Problem"] has generated almost 1,000 comments and nearly 90,000 page views. It's a prime example of the feminist blogosphere's tendency to tap into the market force of what I've come to think of as "outrage world"—the regularly occurring firestorms stirred up on mainstream, for-profit, woman-targeted blogs like Jezebel and also, to a lesser degree, Slate's own XX Factor and Salon's Broadsheet. 

Ha. A lesser degree. Hidden question: How can we get those page views?

They're ignited by writers who are pushing readers to feel what the writers claim is righteously indignant rage but which is actually just petty jealousy, cleverly marketed as feminism. These firestorms are great for page-view-pimping bloggy business. But they promote the exact opposite of progressive thought and rational discourse, and the comment wars they elicit almost inevitably devolve into didactic one-upsmanship and faux-feminist cliché. The vibe is less sisterhood-is-powerful than middle-school clique in-fight, with anyone who dares to step outside of chalk-drawn lines delimiting what's "empowering" and "anti-feminist" inevitably getting flamed and shamed to bits. 

Consider the radical idea that women are human beings.

"Thank God for La Mer and Retin-A and Pilates — and, yes, hot sex..."

"... which is good fun and may be no more than a Maginot Line against the inevitable, but that’s not nothing. And my hair, honey-highlighted for years now, has the swank length of mermaid youth—which is how I plan to keep it no matter what proper pageboy is age-appropriate. No question, there are physical facts about my age that are undeniably delightful. I am much sexier now than I used to be—I suddenly have this voluptuous body where I used to just be skinny and lithe. Really oddly, a couple of years ago I got serious breasts, to the point where people think I’ve had them surgically enhanced, which I certainly have not. Still, I think, the honest truth is that I’m just not as pretty as I used to be. Something has abandoned me. I don’t know what that thing is—they’ve been trying to jar it and bottle it for centuries—but it’s left, another merciless lover. My hips are thicker, my skin is thinner, my eyes shine less brightly—will I ever again glow as if all the stars are out at night just to greet me? What finally falls away, after enough things don’t go as planned, is that look of expectancy—which, when worn down to pentimento, is revealed to be exhaustion."

Elizabeth Wurtzel is doing that complaining/bragging thing again. This time, the problem is she's getting old, but she's still way prettier than you, she hopes you know. She's 41, by the way, which seems young to me, but perhaps — do I remember it properly? — that's a time when the fear of aging and death spikes.

Via Jezebel, who says:

As she explains with characteristic candor, she was always a beautiful child, a "hot number," a woman who traded on her looks. And she misses it. While she sees the danger and futility of valuing beauty overmuch, she can't help it: panic trumps insight and she doesn't seem eager to stop it. And it's scary to see a smart and accomplished woman so openly in the thrall of others' opinions.

"Althouse is presumed to be in some sort of more powerful, dominant position..."

Jezebel opines.