None of this makes a difference. I dont get why you keep coming back to this.
It changes nothing what was said in this article and the fact they even started this in a series is even worse.
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Black History Month Trolling Continues: Esquire’s Profile Of White American Boy During Black History Month Stirs Controversy
- Thread starter Flow
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It changes nothing what was said in this article and the fact they even started this in a series is even worse.
There are many things I think white males get shit for, for seemingly little to no reason. Supporting trump isnt one of them.
The man is prejudiced against anyone who isnt rich, white, and male, but oh yeah, how could anyone not like that I support someone like that???!
Wake the fuck up, "white boy".
Ps, I'm pretty sure this whole piece is fake to rile people up.
The man is prejudiced against anyone who isnt rich, white, and male, but oh yeah, how could anyone not like that I support someone like that???!
Wake the fuck up, "white boy".
Ps, I'm pretty sure this whole piece is fake to rile people up.
You're right.
What the piece is doing is coddling a "know nothing" stance on white political reflection by fawning over how smart and well-liked the boy is, who can't for the life of him figure out why women and minorities in america want their voices heard now more than ever without feeling like he himself is being personally attacked, mistaking acts of defiance against the hard-right reactionary whiplash of 2016 as "boy I sure am not allowed to do things anymore" and never once thinking that maybe he's been an asshole and isn't willing to reflect on history and context.
Granted, there's only so hard a publication can go in on a seventeen year old boy, but this is just another useless puff piece about another White Guy Who Doesn't Get It and we're left standing there in a field with him as he continues to think that maybe someday things will be easier for him like they were when his parents didn't have to compete for jobs, social status and opportunities with women and minorities.
It's definitely not pandering to Trump Voters.
It's pandering to white people who don't want to change or think about themselves, let alone think about even the slightest bit of sacrifice while everyone with skin in the game tries not to wither from existential terror at what has been happening for the last two years. Y'know, """moderates"""
If the point of the article series isn't to get me to care about the principle subject of the article... isn't that an article that completely fails to accomplish what it's supposed to do? I imagine articles are supposed to be interesting and not just a series of boring anecdotes. Especially if it's the goddamn cover story and supposed to rope me into reading more of what supposedly will be a series.
You know what, if they wanted to cover this kid with zero coherent point or some kind of... I don't know attempt at education, fine. But at least have the fucking foresight to not release the goddamn article in February and maybe put the supposed upcoming Black article instead. There was no reason this shit had to come out this month.
Who said I expected the EIC to demonize their interview subject? I said there was no evidence in the piece to support the EIC's claim that the kid is "an unusually mature, intelligent, and determined young man." The EIC doesn't need to prop up this kid, and consequently his perspectives, as something they're not.
Should it? Let's review.
"How could they publish this during black history month?" is an asinine complaint. It's the March issue. Hits subscribers today, won't see newstands for a good bit- but is meant to be MARCH'S issue, not February's. And Esquire doesn't publish a February issue and hasn't for a while. How many other publications do you know that put their Black History Month content in the March issue? And before you say anything, publishing weeks earlier than the cover month IS standard practice for US publications.
second: not one single person before I did noted that this was not a standalone piece, but one of a series, and Esquire WILL be publishing similar pieces on the Black, Female, and LGBTQ experience before it completes. it's meant to reference a similar piece they did in 1992, which highlighted a day in the life of a ten year old boy- only more expansive.
Third: Esquire isn't in the business of writing Trump friendly puff pieces- that's not their audience. Conservatives wouldn't be caught reading it any more than they would be caught subscribing to Ebony magazine. It's left of center, and the politics section WILDLY so.
Fourth: Esquire has no issue with putting black men (it is a men's magazine) on their cover- there were 8 regular issues last year, two of them had black headliners on the cover. The same for 2017, and 2016. The implication that they're tone deaf on race issues doesn't hold up.
I rarely have to call out "outrage culture" but the majority of complaints in this thread are off base.
There is no insightful commentary here. It's just a privileged white boy passively complaining about being white, male, and moderately wealthy with no nuance or maturity. Fuck, he even complains about football not allowing hard hits anymore, and they had the audacity to fucking put it in the article as if anyone should care that some kid shares the inane majority opinion of the white male Republican demographic about something that doesn't affect his life whatsoever.
Esquire is trash in general so I'm not exactly surprised. I imagine 95% of their readership is white too, so again, not surprising. I'd actually be more surprised if they put a poc on the the cover for this profile, and that would have gotten them good press instead of bad, but they'll probably get more bad press this way, and as the old saying goes...
I followed Esquire on IG. Whenever they posted something featuring a black guy the comments would be filled with triggered remarks from milky dudes with names like "the gentlemanly gent" with profiles featuring bad haircuts, ugly plaid suits, and cheap watches.
im a white man. and its so incredibly easy not to be an absolute piece of shit. its amazing how difficult it seems for some people though.
"i know what i cant do. i just don't know what i can do"
well, ryan, anything that isn't "what i can't do" is my guess.
"i know what i cant do. i just don't know what i can do"
well, ryan, anything that isn't "what i can't do" is my guess.
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No? The purpose isn't to get you to care the purpose is to show a look at real people. I find the concept to be quite interesting and didn't expect the subject to be interesting. The cover to me looks like they wanted to show just an average white teen and the bedroom setting helps that.
It would probably have been more sensible to delay the series by a month since even though it's meant for the month of March it's out in February so they definitely could have timed the release of it better.
The biggest issue with "outrage culture" is it's never introspective. We so easily shame others, yet we never direct that shame inwards and question whether we could, or should, be better people. I'm a white man, and I'm ashamed of this "what's the big deal, bro?" mentality common among my kind, which happens to be NEITHER NEW OR NEWSWORTHY.
The subject of this piece thinks of himself as the real victim, and many of the subscribers who'll read the article will likely identify with him, and not even bother reading the associated "minority spotlight" articles to which you allude.
I'm sure the subject of this piece does- and while I don't think it's a particularly compelling piece, I think it's off base to consider it in a vacuum without the other three parts of the piece that we know are coming. How does what THIS guy believe compare and contrast to the Black experience- not a hypothetical one, but an actual 17 year old Black Boy? 32 year old Woman? Non Binary Individual?
I'll reserve judgement on the merit of the piece until it's complete. As for the criticism that the editor/author chose to compliment the kid as unusually intelligent, courageous, what have you- this kid from middle of nowhere red state land willingly chose to be the cover story of a left leaning publication whose readership hates Trump and everyone who voted for him. He had to know the reaction wouldn't have been sympathetic no matter what month it ran in. For a 17 year old, yeah that takes some balls even IF the kid is a bit of a tone deaf idiot.
If National Review, Washington Times, or American Conservative came knocking on my door to profile me on the Black Liberal Experience I'd run the other way as fast as I could. Kudos to this kid for giving Esquire a shot to profile him honestly.
as for those reading the articles- "many of the subscribers" are left leaning coastal elites who would sooner call this kid out as a Trump loving asshole as most of this thread is long before they identify with him. Because that's who subscribes to Esquire. That magazine spends absolutely NO time pandering to the interests of flyover country and doesn't bother disguising that they aren't it's audience.
If you "don't like to read" spotlight articles, then subscribing to a magazine that does long form fiction and cultural spotlight articles would be a bit bewildering, wouldn't it? Esquire isn't Maxim.
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Unsurpringly, none of this is an accident.
Blantantly belittling, shunning, or racially targeting black people is still an age-old company tactic to increase brand awareness.
Blantantly belittling, shunning, or racially targeting black people is still an age-old company tactic to increase brand awareness.
The ambivalence of "coastal elites" is the problem. Esquire sells itself to dudes who need help deciding which $1500 watch to buy; it is not, first and foremost, viewed as a political magazine. And being on the "right side" most of the time doesn't insulate you to criticism when you say or write something that's tone-deaf. There are lots of people who believe themselves to be "progressives" that do nothing to challenge their families, peer groups, or themselves to be more empathetic to people outside their sphere.
More like "unremarkable white teenager says unremarkable things, manages to get cover story of major print magazine."
This is just a larger profile version of those endless NYT rural wildlife expeditions documenting what white people in podunk town bars think about the latest Trump controversy. (Hint: it's exactly the same as last time!)
So has anyone compiled a list of the advertisers in Esquire, who are clearly going to see a significant drop off in business over the next month?
"Ryan, raised in Republican households, was surprised by the vitriol. 'Everyone hates me because I support Trump?' he says. 'I couldn't debate anyone without being shut down and called names. Like, what did I do wrong?'"
By 2037 every Trump supporter will have had their own profile in a major newspaper or magazine.
Pulitzer Prize winning material
Look at the content of the article. There is literally not one shred of insight to be gleaned from any of the aspects of life it covered:
Their advertisers are almost all targeting the very wealthy, if not the 1%. I've literally seen advertisements for Lear Jets in Esquire- the target audience for that couldn't have been more than 3 guys. An advertising boycott of that magazine might be a little difficult to pull off.
Of course, they've seen they're rewarded with attention. None of this is accidental. They're racist and don't give a shit.
I think the way this was written and what it was written about is intentional. The author (who is a woman by the way, not a man like some people were saying earlier in the thread) wants to convey the bland reality of an average white boy. He doesn't have to worry about his gender, his race, or his sexuality. He likes to act like he doesn't speak or know about modern politics, yet is very comfortably engaging with it on social media using alt-right talking points.
Releasing it during Black History Month is trying to show that his "struggles" are incredibly insignificant to actual problems.
Releasing it during Black History Month is trying to show that his "struggles" are incredibly insignificant to actual problems.
Esquire basically paid someone to write up a story summarizing Ben Folds's 2001 classic "Rockin' the Suburbs"?
Y'all don't know what it's like being male, middle class, and white
Y'all don't know what it's like being male, middle class, and white
Y'all don't know what it's like being male, middle class, and white
Y'all don't know what it's like being male, middle class, and white
Y'all don't know what it's like being male, middle class, and white
Y'all don't know what it's like being male, middle class, and white
Y'all don't know what it's like being male, middle class, and white
Y'all don't know what it's like being male, middle class, and white
Like the idea of this isn't bad in of itself, doubly so when followed with experiences from someone of another gender and/or ethnicity it just someone with more progressive views in general. It is supposed to be a series and I'm more than ok with folks like him being profiled. But that writing is piss poor.
The only charitable explanations is that the writer didn't have much to work with, or as has been written was slyly mocking the subject of her article.
The only charitable explanations is that the writer didn't have much to work with, or as has been written was slyly mocking the subject of her article.
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I wrote that. Seriously, what journalist worth their salt would write "somberly vaped"?
All I'm getting from this thread is that I should be writing for "Esquire."