For no real reason, and in no particular order, here are some people doing worthwhile and interesting things in [waves arms expansively] the media. They all have something in common. I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Shani Hilton, Buzzfeed
Shani Hilton is a big fucking deal and you should pay attention to everything she does. She’s the Deputy Editor-in-Chief at Buzzfeed and when she’s not being ignored by stupid Top 40 Lists, she’s quietly building a media empire and hiring incredible people. You’re not paying enough attention to her, and that’s stupid of you.
Nitasha Tiku, Valleywag
Editor of Valleywag. Twice the work, half the attention. Talks to girls.
Happy 4th of July to my dad, who came to America 40 years ago today with $30-$40 to research Hepatitis B so that I could one day tweet
— Nitasha Tiku (@nitashatiku) July 4, 2014
Rebecca Schoenkopf, Wonkette
Since Schoenkopf took over Wonkette in March 2012, all the important numbers are up – “traffic’s up 65% on last year, we’re getting a half-million unique visitors a month, and 3.7 million page views.” …If anything, Schoenkopf’s Wonkette has been funnier, and more infused with its original sensibility – that of an ardent and scathing liberal woman (the previous two editors were men).
Not that this is relevant, but she’s hot as shit and funny as hell. And she wouldn’t mind my calling her hot as shit in a list that has nothing to do with physical appearance. She runs shit, and she once bought my grandmother two glasses of wine and a hamburger while charming the pants off of her. “That Rebecca is such a wonderful character,” my grandmother says whenever I mention Rebecca to her. “You tell her I say hello.” I always do.
Pilot Viruet, Flavorwire Full disclosure: I have hugged Pilot Viruet within the last week. She was wearing Bart Simpson jorts at the time, if memory serves. She’s the TV and Entertainment editor at Flavorwire and writes occasionally for The A.V. Club. She wrote most recently about the “racist mess” that is “Girlfriend Intervention”:
Practically every other sentence the makeover team says is prefaced with the phrase “as a black woman,” to remind you that they’re black but their canvas is white, and that there are vast differences between black and white women — although the show claims it’s just about women in general, regardless of skin color, and how we all want the same thing (“to look fabulous”) and should all love ourselves. Well, as a black woman, it’s hard for me to feel good about Girlfriend Intervention, because it’s actively trying to make me hate myself and who I am.
She’s very funny on Twitter; you should follow her there.
Heben Nigatu, Buzzfeed
If you didn’t read “If White People Were Described Like People Of Color In Literature” last month, then I don’t want to hear any of your thoughts about publishing.
Mikki Kendall and Jamie Nesbitt Golden, Hood Feminism
Mikki and Jamie started Hood Feminism last year without outside funding or glowing writeups in the press. They just somehow manage to do journalism without any of those things.
Julia Wong, At Large
You’re a fool if you don’t read her every day; you’re an idiot if you don’t hire her to write for you. Also responsible for this sick burn:
Am I the only reporter who went to a #HobbyLobby and interviewed women workers? http://t.co/NuaLNgW6IL — Julia Carrie Wong (@juliacarriew) July 3, 2014
Jia Tolentino, At Large
For this:
“And maybe it’s good that people keep writing pieces like this, so impossibly shallow and shortcut-minded that the subtext is clear as anything: look how nice we look, as a people, when white gets to be more interesting and minorities get to look white. Look at this freckled, green-eyed future. Look at how beautiful it is to see everything diluted that we used to hate.”
And for this:
“I don’t believe in zero-sum games and I don’t write this to imply that neurodegenerative disease and human rights abuse have been put in direct conflict. Rather, I’m fascinated with what appears to be the opposite. The contemporaneity of these waves in social communication have revealed these ills — as well as the advocates for their solutions — to not just be non-conflicting but also emblematic of two separate paths of identifying and addressing unfairness, two roads that are inherently miles and miles apart.
Ferguson, unlike the Ice Bucket Challenge, is an opt-in situation, and the demographic division between those who have chosen to get involved in one or the other cause is startling. Tibetan monks on the one hand, Mark Zuckerberg on the other; Amnesty International in Missouri, the Kennedys in Hyannis Port. Maybe for your own social networks the divide is starkly blue and red; it is, very much, for me.”
But always, always for this:
“This is my own problem, an idiot’s problem, the inevitable result of so much time spent doubling down on jokes until they become unrecognizably assimilated into my lifestyle; the distance between poles eventually had to go. But now “Rude” has become the tesseract of both my musical universe and my structural understanding of the relationship between intention and result. It now seems not only possible but staggeringly well-accomplished that a song could draw all its life force from achingly spot-on and specifically out-of-date self-parody without no one involved in the production ever really finding out or in any way having to know. Everything’s collapsed now, everything’s embarrassing.”
Charlotte Shane, Tits and Sass
“Consent in the Context of Sex Work.” That’s…that’s pretty disruptive, right? A writer who talks about her sex work and matters of public policy? This counts as disrupting, I think.
Shafiqah Hudson, This Mermaid Life
Shafiqah’s written for us and she’s currently in the process of funding her own memoir. Because sometimes no one else will do it for you.
Bim Adewumni, The Guardian
Her cultural criticism at The Guardian is collected here (“The truth about pregnancy and work” is worth reading first), her personal writing is at Yoruba Girl Dancing (On “ogbon agba”, and knowing when to shut the hell up).
Jazmine Hughes and Haley Mlotek, The Hairpin
Jazmine Hughes is twenty-two years old. Twenty-two years old. I think Haley is maybe twenty-five. They’re running the joint.
There. That took, like, an hour, and I’m not even a real journalist. IT’S NOT THAT HARD.
Tags: interesting people, lists, people, THE MEDIA, things mallory does for no reason
I think that tag should be changed to “things Mallory does for very good reasons”
*That* list? Zero clicks.
*This* list? 27 new tabs open.
Disruptive!
My thoughts while looking at *that* list LOOK AT ALL THOSE WHITE MEN AND A COUPLE WHITE WOMEN, one of which gets co-listed with a couple WHITE MEN. (to be honest, I did not see that list before this list, but had a feeling what was coming)
My thoughts while looking at *this* list THANK YOU, MUCH BETTER, CARRY ON.
One of the things I love about the Toast is that it introduces me to so many amazing women we are so lucky to share this world with. Thanks!
And then some of them come into the comments and chat with us and are LOVELY AND AWESOME. We are lucky here.
lol literally came here because I was listening to Jia’s tinybitchtapes (http://tinyletter.com/tinybitchtapes guys go subscribe) and thought, I miss her voice, maybe something on the toast will help that feeling!
YUP LITERALLY THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME (see post below)
Today’s was so good! JIA!
I was already familiar with many of these but not all, and now I have a million tabs open and shall follow everyone immediately. Thanks Toast for being awesome, as always.
Not for nothing, Jia Tolentino also sends out a playlist called tinybitchtapes every Wednesday, and you ought to subscribe to it, because it’s just so fucking great.
She’s pretty much the reason my music choices aren’t completely terrible.
Well that takes care of my afternoon listening.
I went to a Wonkette meetup like a big dork one time just so’s I could meet Rebecca Schoenkopf and she is everything you say. she wouldn’t remember me even if I had told her my name or spoken to her very much, because she was drunk at the time. then again, so was I.
OR WOULD I?????
aaaAHHH
it was in DC during your grand tour a couple years ago and Josh Fruhlinger was there too, it was a magical evening. I don’t usually enjoy these internet-stranger things but the free beer made it special.
New party game: every time somebody talks about “disrupters/disruptors” make fart sounds with your mouth until they stop talking.
laughing out loud at the office in my fancy job at a tech startup
Can I touch base with you? I think we can crowd source a way for you to really disrupt the paradigm of your current business meetings.
Ping me on how best to leverage key stakeholders.
Let’s do a deep dive after we scrum.
Now you’re just making up sex euphemisms.
Most technology/marketing management speak sounds like a string of euphemisms. One of my managers speaks exclusively in managerial cliches, and it sounds profoundly dirty.
Synergy reach out innovation?
Phbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbt
goddamn that closing line : “There. That took, like, an hour, and I’m not even a real journalist. IT’S NOT THAT HARD.”
NO IT IS NOT THAT HARD OTHER PEOPLE HAVE THOUGHTS BESIDES WHITE MEN and you know who’s interested? Other NOT WHITE MEN and guess what? THERE ARE MORE OF US THAN YOU.
and guess what? THERE ARE MORE OF US THAN YOU simultaneously gave me chills and made me swell with delight.
I don’t want to embed it here because it’s huge but here is a link to an image set from Better Off Ted that ends with an Asian woman telling a white man that “statistically, you’re the exotic one.”
Yessss so many good reminders of things I need to read that aren’t written by boring white men.
This is the song I sang when I went down that other list:
Man
Man
Man
White bald man,
Pouty man,
Married to a really, really rich man (good for her)
‘nother Pouty Man
Media darlings
Ha ha ha
Vox.
I’m thinking you used an operatic style?
Or was it K-Pop?
I’ve got so many catchy versions of your song in my head.
More David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust.
Solid choice
Minor correction — she’s actually really wealthy thanks to her father — he’s a trustee at Brown if that gives you any indication of his level of wealth.
Ahhhhh Mallory sharing this everywhere
I kind of wish “A Sperry” would start making misogynist comments on this thread so we could all shit on him.
Drags on walnut-burl pipe
I only read Vanity Fair for the articles, never the lists…
Leans back into leather armchair, crosses legs, opens magazine.
Ayn Rand Harry Potter?
leather armchair…. ON A TRAIN
I’ve been sitting here trying to make a comment for like fifteen minutes because I keep looking at that list of “news disrupters” and I want to throw things at it. Because LOOK AT ALL THESE MEN. No. No I am tired of looking at men. Could you not come up with ONE person of colour? ONE? There are two women on that list, and look what they cover: politics and technology, i.e., things that White Men have deemed to be Important. In a world connected with the Internet, a place that is just cram-jammed with really really interesting diverse people who bring hundreds of thousands of perspectives and viewpoints to the table, Vanity Fair serves up this tired, boring, cold sop. Of white men and white women doing things that are important and relevant to white wealthy men. Look. Technology. Politics. Sports. Politics. Finances. Politics.
Also, Vanity Fair, your list has a typo in it. So fuck you.
I have never loved you more than in this instant.
Interesting definition of “striking out on their own” in the VF list. Thank you for this!
Clicking and clicking and clicking and listening to all the tinybitchtapes…thanks, my afternoon is shot. No really, actually, THANK YOU.
PIlot!! Worth noting that she also writes for TV Hangover, a site that throws fantastic TV-themed parties in Brooklyn at a video rental store/bar/screening room called Videology roughly once a month. Everyone sits down and watches a few episodes of DeGrassi: The Next Generation or The OC or Buffy while doing trivia and playing drinking games. So lovely.
She also loves Catfish and hosted a Josie & the Pussycats singalong at Videology, so I will never not adore her.
This… is maybe the first thing that has ever made me consider rethinking my ironclad I WILL NEVER LIVE IN NEW YORK EVER NO MATTER WHAT THANKS stance.
Here’s a thing about New York: there are a lot of minor quibbles when you live here, problems you didn’t realize even existed. (The subway smells like a foot. People walk entirely too slowly. $7 is too much for Stella Artois. You will judge people from other boroughs, and they will judge you. Et cetera.) But then you find something like a Josie singalong or a $3 happy hour with the kindest bartender you’ve ever met or a store that sells tote bags featuring Teddy Roosevelt high-fiving a bear, and you think, “Maybe this was a good decision after all.”
This fits in really well with today’s Bleeding Cool article about how Kelly Sue DeConnick, author of the wildly-popular-especially-among-women Captain Marvel, is not invited to the annual writer’s retreats that Marvel hosts to map out books and arcs. And that’s some ridiculousness already, but then the cherry on top of the sundae of fail is Marvel editor Tom Brevoort, asked to comment, tweeting that it’s because she’s not exclusive to the house. It’s evidently fine that other non-exclusive writers, like Joss Whedon and Kieron Gillen, are invited, but god for-fucking-bid you let a girl forget that she’s just Not Quite One of the Gang.
This is semi-infuriating. I haven’t read much of her stuff (Captain Marvel’s next on my list of Marvel titles to check out), but from what I can gather, she’s an incredibly gracious, insightful, creative writer who’s doing Very Good Things for women working in comics. Marvel’s always had a lady problem, though I know DC is far worse, so… um, nope, that doesn’t make it better. Blah.
At least we have Image, who (probably) hasn’t been exposed as unfriendly to ladies, right?
Have you read Pretty Deadly? (the one she’s writing at Image that’s apparently such an insult to Marvel or whatever). I had a great time with it – it’s a supernatural western, but unlike so many others (looking at you, East of West), it’s not entirely about MANPAIN.
No, not yet! I’ve seen so much gorgeous fanart and cosplay lately that it’s an inevitability, though.
(Also, hi, Mr. Biscuit.)
One time Mr. Biscuit’s owner commented on a post of mine, and I felt weird about it, but I love that whole story so much.
Whaaaaat oh my god what.
No, but you can’t let girls in the Sekrit Clubhouse!!!
UGH. Seems like almost every day that DC and Marvel are crapping all over KSD and Gail Simone, in big ways and small. 🙁
One of these days one or both of them will go fully independent and wreck shop, sales-wise, and the major houses will be wondering how it happened. Even though anyone could tell them how. Not being misogynist assholes is a good start.
GAIL SIMONE. *heart eyes*
I started following on Pilot a million years ago on Tumblr. She lives in my neighborhood and we have mutual friends, so I’ve seen her around, but I always get oddly star-struck? YOU’RE TOO COOL FOR ME TO TALK TO, PILOT.
Yeah, she greeted me really enthusiastically at the Josie & the Pussycats singalong because I’d tweeted about it, and I was like “umhisorrynotcoolenoughgonnagogetadarkandstormynow.”
What! Please say hi to me! I promise I am not that cool. I am mostly scared of humans and just stutter about nothing.
Yeah, all those rich white folks are real ICONOCLASTS, holy crap!
ALSO, can we talk about how Nate Silver hasn’t done anything of heft since the last presidential election? His schtick is all fine and good, and he’s at least 50% brilliant, but I don’t see how he’s at all a game changer or a “disrupter” (that should not even be a word) right now.
Also, how are any of these guys disrupting anything, really? Does that word have any meaning at all anymore?
Sorkin: Still works for the old media NY Times and cable news station CNBC.
Simmons: Still works for media giant ESPN.
Pogue: Boring old dude that no one I know listens to; has a column on Yahoo?
Sullivan: Has own site, fine; still a white dude.
Silver: Works for media giant ESPN.
Taibbi: First Look hasn’t even been published yet?
Anyone associated with Vox should be ashamed of himself.
GOD, exactly. What is this list actually? “Overwhelmingly Dude Journalists With Name Recognition”?
“Anyone associated with Vox should be ashamed of himself.”
I don’t know that Vox is particularly “disruptive” or ground-breaking or whatever, but this seems a touch… strident? They’re not doing something evil by running a perfectly okay news site.
Yeah, I actually like what Vox is doing? I really don’t get why people have such huge objections to it.
Vox is a really interesting site, and I do find myself reading a lot of what they publish. It’s extremely informative, mostly unbiased, and reasonably well written.
The style and aim of the site is very DC-oriented. In DC, no matter where you work, political literacy is social currency. You go to a happy hour, or a lunch and learn, or even coffee with your consulting/contracting/government co-workers, and it’s almost a game to see who can bring in the most breaking of political news topics and understand every minute detail about the story and its history and its significance and its ramifications and how that might affect your contracts in the upcoming months. And if you’re not up to date, then you can’t participate in the conversation.
When I saw Vox launch, it was this drive to know everything about everything that stamps DC Culture all over that site. It’s how their “cards” work – it gives you a crash course in enough details to get you through conversations with your friends, andyou can sound like you followed the story “before it was cool.”
Ok, revise that to read “whoever provided Ezra Klein with $70 million in funding to create Vox, the cream of wheat of news sites, should be ashamed of himself.”
They’re disrupting the dedication to journalism outside one’s ego?
This is great and thank you and I have now followed ALL OF THEM on twitter instead of just some of them.
Surely it takes more effort into deluding yourself that Andrew Sullivan is still fairly relevant than it took Mallory to make this list?
That Jia piece about fetishizing the concept of multiracial was so brilliant and beautifully written, and the comments were so appalling. It makes me furious that people like that think they have any business at all commenting on her piece. No. Your opinions are all worthless.
gif selection A+, will now replay this in my head every time I see “missing the point” comments on a brilliant piece.
This is a very good list. Thank you.
How is Vox disruptive? It’s the Internet Media equivalent of Readers Digest.
It’s letting everyone mansplain on the internet! Or something.
UGH THE MANSPLAINING INTERNET I HAVE SO MUCH HATE FOR THIS
ahem. sorry. i’m okay now.
So far, the VF post is that rarity where reading the comments (all three of them) is uniquely satisfying. I hope my loyalty to Sperry footwear despite being generally underfunded doesn’t hurt me in this crowd.
Yes, I was kind of overly amused by them. I like that the whopping three comments are just like “Oh a bunch of white dudes. Great job” –> “That’s reverse racist/sexist!!!” –> “You’re an idiot”. fin.
But you make Sperries look cool. No one else can.
You are all heroes.
Excuse me, I’m just gonna write a little love letter to Mallory real quick.
Mallory.
M
A
L
L
O
R
Y.
Mal.
Lo.
Ry.
Have you ever been so struck by an event that you immediately lose all the code-switching you built up in college and the workplace, and revert to your natural vernacular that only comes out when you’re the most emotive and totally unhinged?
MAL, YOU * church stamp * GAVE * soul clap * ME * falls out * LIFE.
What’s best about this list is that it’s NOT (ahh edit edit sorry) just a “List of Women, to Make Up For an Error.” It’s GREAT PEOPLE doing GREAT fucking work. Every cherry picking one. Like, of COURSE Heben Nigatu is on this list. One day I am going to turn my TV on and see Heben waving at the end of SNL, and not in the back like some intern, but in the front, NEXT TO LORNE, STANDING OVER LORNE’S DEAD BODY PROBABLY, running the show. Pilot Virulet is, undoubtedly, the Best Boob Punch on the Internet, and Tina Belcher in real life, but better. BETTER THAN TINA BELCHER. Jia is a genius, an actual genius, that will be in history books and stuff, and I’ll brag to my grandchildren about how I took her old job (“so why aren’t we studying you in history, Grandmater?”). I now spend 98% of my day gchatting with Haley and my life is ONE MILLION TIMES BETTER with the introduction of her sweet Canadian soul. All of these women are so incredible and we should be talking about them every. damn. day. FUCK yes, Mallory. Thank you.
</embarrassment>
</PSYCHE I MEANT EVERY STINKIN WORD>
Yesss, Jazmine, you are great and probably the reason the whole lot of us aren’t dying from Jia-withdrawal.
I once interned for Rebecca! She was great and so was Wonkette, even though I had to leave after a month because it turns out two part time jobs while working on your thesis is not recommended.
Also, subscribing to Jia’s music newsletter thingy because I recently realized I need more music with lyrics in my life!
It’s so weird seeing lists that are super-white like this. Especially since my list for this looks more like Mallory’s, which really shows me not only how hopelessly ignorant these list-creators are, but also how much assumption goes into lists like these: “only white men can do anything worth talking about.” It’s a fact I will keep with me when seeing other super-white lists.
I would add Ann Friedman to the list of amazing people, especially as she has some great stuff on building media empires and digital startups created by women that are largely ignored by more mainstream media.
How to disrupt.
1) Be a white male
2) Branch off a parent company (like ESPN or IAC) or get VC money or do both.
3) Create product that people use sometimes (does anyone read 538 for anything besides the burrito bracket)
4) Congratulations! You just disrupted!
If your website gets 3x-10x the traffic but is run by women and/or PoC, consider a new strategy, like hiring a white man.
Guys, I think we broke tinybitchtapes. Or my wifi sucks.
Oh wait. There it goes, along with my afternoon.
late to the game, but this list is AMAZING and this is why i love the toast.
This is amazing and badly needed. Let us all continue speaking the names of great women until we drown out the voices of men.
Latoya Peterson! Andrea Plaid!
Fuck. Yes.
Fuck. Yes.
I read this list yesterday and fell off my sofa and rolled around on the floor in joy and now I've managed to get back in front of my laptop.
I have loved Bim Adewunmi from afar for quite some time now. (gentle sigh, a little frayed round the edges.) Her personal tumblr is full of joyous things, also, in visual form.
Hot damn, thanks for getting me to Jia’s piece on ALS/Ferguson – everything I was thinking but couldn’t articulate.
Hot damn, thanks for getting me to Jia's piece on ALS/Ferguson – everything I was thinking but couldn't articulate.
So many great people on this list, but I seriously worship at the church of Jia Tolentino. SHE WILL BE IN HISTORY BOOKS.
mansplainosphere
Synergy reach out innovation?