Apparently, There Are Still People Confused About Why We Talk About Lena Dunham, Caitlyn Jenner, And Other Horrific Celebrities.

This message was posted on our Facebook wall the other day, and I see similar versions of it a lot, despite having answered this question like eleventy skillion times.

So I’m going to answer it again, so I can just link to this post whenever the question is asked in the future.

Here is the question:

First of all, there’s a whole lot in this question that I absolutely agree with. Lena Dunham IS a washed up skank of a cow. And the fact that so much coverage is dedicated to her, to Caitlyn Jenner, and the LGBTQ world IS disgusting.

But here’s the reality. Pop culture and politics are inextricably linked. Ignoring the worst of humanity won’t make those horrific people go away nor will it make them less relevant. You’d have to be willfully in denial not to recognize that LGBTQ issues have influenced national policy – and the reason for that is because those activists are LOUD. Staying quiet isn’t the way to fight cultural enemies. We have to be as loud or louder.

Lena Dunham has over 5 MILLION Twitter followers, over 3 million instagram followers, a huge following on her own website, and her book was an instant best seller. And you think her ridiculous messages – if they’re ignored by OUR site – will simply go away? Nonsense. She and her followers will continue to get louder, and have more of an impact on politics. The only way to have a chance to balance out the crap they’re spewing is to have a loud counter message.

There’s another theme I’m noticing on our social media and in the comments section here on our website. Conservatives are incredibly hypocritical when it comes to telling us what kind of content they want to see. Take the Malia Obama post, for example. The swarm to that post was instant the second we posted a link to it on Facebook. There was no secret about what the post would be about – the headline read “VIDEO: Malia Obama Sure Knows How To Partay!” No “clickbait” there – you knew if you clicked on that post, you’d see video of Malia Obama partying. So what happened? EVERYONE CLICKED. Way more so than they typically do on any of our political, substantive, meaty posts, I should point out. It’s the same thing that happens with every Lena Dunham or Caitlyn Jenner post too. And after they read, consume, and absorb those posts, they promptly comment how outraged they are that we posted it.

It’s like clockwork, y’all.

I think some folks are forgetting what our site is all about. We’ve made it clear – with the Why We Started This Blog post we did when we first launched almost 9 years ago. If you’ve never read that, you should. We’re not here to be “journalists” or to be another straight-laced news site. We’ve never been that, and never WILL be that. We are here to offer commentary on the news of the day, regardless of what that news might be. If it intrigues us, interests us, moves us in some way – we’re gonna talk about it.

Telling us Malia Obama, a WORKING ADULT, is “off-limits” is absurd. Particularly since we didn’t even say anything BAD about her. Hell – I wanna PARTY with that girl. Our site is reflective of the conversations we would have in Actual Life – where we don’t hold back, we don’t worry about being PC, and we certainly aren’t “journalists.” If you’re not here to participate in real conversations, that’s ok. But that’s what we’re doing, and we will never apologize for it.

If those conversations aren’t ones you’re interested in, well, the data/analytics aren’t reflecting that AT ALL. The posts everyone claims to be outraged by, almost without fail, are the ones that get the most hits. Just sayin’.

Now, some of you might be thinking, “I never SEE political posts from you in my FB timeline – I only see the celebrity crap!” A couple different reasons that might be happening – first, you’re engaging/interacting/liking/commenting on/sharing the celebrity crap more so than you are the political stuff. The more you engage with a certain type of post, the more that trips the FB algorithms to keep showing you those kinds of posts. Second – if you’re not engaging/interacting/liking/commenting on/sharing any of our posts, you’re likely only going to see the ones that are the most trafficked by others. Posts that get a lot of traffic are instantly recognized by FB as posts that should be seen by more people. That’s how it all works.

I’m telling you this so that you understand that when you complain about celebrity posts, or yell at us for writing about boobs, or complain that we’re not serious enough in our “journalism” – we’re just rolling our eyes and shaking our heads, because the numbers don’t lie.

We’re going to continue doing what we’ve always done – which is to write our thoughts about all the worlds’ goings-on in our conversational style, in the way that we always have, and in a way that ignores completely what people think a “news site” should be about, because we’re NOT one. We never have been. For many of you, that’s exactly why you’re here. You get it. You get US. And we appreciate you.

Hope that clears up some things! 🙂