Obviously I wound up discussing the RFK Jr. / Olivia Nuzzi scandal, scooped by Oliver Darcy’s new media newsletter Status, ad nauseum over the weekend. The internet is rife with both details and rumors by now, but what has struck me most are the varying tenors of the uproar, as if “the internet”—that is, people who are also somehow still on Twitter—is struggling to apply various (possibly competing) rules of morality to the scandal (by which I mean, to mostly Nuzzi herself and her actions; in a post-Me Too world, the phenomenon of suited men acting badly is understood to be so ordinary that it would appear their morality is a moot point of discussion, which, hmm). So now you have some people who are defending Nuzzi for various reasons and at various volumes and some other people who are condemning her for various reasons and at various volumes. You can absolutely feel the online “public” (again: media dorks still on X) genuinely struggling to behold a few truths concurrently: That there is simply nothing the world enjoys more than debating the morality of a young woman; that in many many many instances in history, we have confused a woman’s sexuality or abuse or general lack of agency with culpability; that a violation of professional conduct is certainly merits professional consequences; but perhaps rarely if ever a full-scale internet and tabloid pile-on; like yeah we probably overdid that a few times in the past; that we have written countless woman out of history for much less; that there are certainly people (of all genders) doing much worse; that journalistic objectivity is important; if also a historically flawed standard; probably if a man did this we would react differently yeah; that this seems bad, but do we really know how to accurately process an adult and not-unpowerful woman fucking up without burning her at the stake nor shrugging and chalking it up to hashtag brat summer? Personally I am not super optimistic on this one. This week in plugging:
Speaking of Charli XCX…my hometown paper got to the bottom of why she and Troye Sivan were spotted in Peoria, Illinois, earlier this month lol. Finally, have you seen Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut AKA Blink Twice yet? I watched it over the weekend with zero context going in, which might be the best way to experience the thriller so long as you’re overall prepared for pretty grim territory. More serious film heads will probably write Blink Twice off as derivative—stop reading now if you want a blank slate going in—and even I thought a lot about Promising Young Woman and of course Get Out during the watch. But it’s stylish and perfectly harrowing, with chewable ideas about our current therapy/trauma culture. Naomi Ackie and Adria Arjona nail some truly excruciating facial expressions; Channing Tatum executes “enlightened tech billionaire” with aplomb. TikTok Corner
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