Associate Editors at Teen Vogue Are Not “The Elite”
Associate Editors at Teen Vogue Are Not “The Elite”
The Musk Twitter meltdown shows how warped notions of who has power and who doesn’t define right-wing grievance politics.
A general axiom of being human is that no one wants to see themselves as the over-dog, the bully, the powerful party. In a 2015 essay for The Atlantic, Julie Beck does a great job laying out how the modern human mind, for complex and overlapping reasons, effectively sees itself as the main character in a morality play. It logically follows, then, that we cannot be the bad guy. After all, stories are not typically told through the point of view of the bad guy. Therefore, there is compelling human psychological incentive to effectively reverse engineer underdog stories for ourselves and others like us. And since political ideology largely flows from material conditions, a world of runaway inequality, racial subjugation, sexism, homophobia, and a host of other routine, institutional modes of oppression—where so few have so much—will necessarily need to create a morality ecosystem where those who are doing the oppressing are, in fact, the oppressed. And those manifestly suffering either are not suffering or deserve to suffer.
This is the primary purpose of right-wing media: to come up with elaborate narratives to convince the average person why those in power are, in fact, powerless, and explain why those society has objectively left to die or actively tried to exterminate—the incarcerated, the poor, the marginalized—are really the ones running the show. One mode of this narrative, which I’ve discussed in more detail elsewhere, has been on full display during the recent meltdown over Twitter’s verification system by Elon Musk and his fellow billionaire Silicon Valley confederates.
In this ongoing meltdown, Musk is trafficking in the language of right-wing populism (or he really believes it—it’s unclear and not terrible important) to justify a transparent cash grab from someone who is massively over-ledgered and facing a severe cash crunch. While advertisers flee en masse, Musk realizes that ginning up outrage for his increasingly small and fringe fanbase by fleecing them for $8 is the quickest and easiest way to cash in on his new play toy. This cash raising scheme needs a moral framework to make any type of sense (again, it’s not clear if Musk believes his own bullshit, but again, it doesn’t really matter) so it’s off to the races with “freeing up the blue checks for the masses,” fighting back against “elite media”:
It’s a similar line we’ve heard for years from the likes of J.D. Vance, Tucker Carlson, and other right-wing hucksters. Power lies not in wealth or social position, but proximity to online digital media.
A few disclaimers: (1) As someone with a blue checkmark I have a bit of conflict of interest here, obviously, but I will say I managed to get mine during that brief time in 2016 when Twitter opened up the application process and pretty much anyone who published at any halfway mainstream publication could get one. Otherwise I would no doubt not have The Badge. (2) It would be disingenuous to not acknowledge that while a blue checkmark does not, in any way, confer wealth or power, it does give one a touch of professional status or official sanction. I think the process of handing them by Twitter post-2016 has been far too stingy and does reward corporate, VC, or billionaire-backed media over independent media. Any independent journalist or alternative media organization that’s tried to get one post-2016 can attest to this. Pre-Musk Twitter did have a bias towards legacy and corporate media, this is true.
But this isn’t what Musk and his Silicon Valley billionaire friends are complaining about. To raise quick cash—and probably get a rush of fawning fandom from his legion of 4Chan groupies—Musk is positioning everyone with a blue checkmark as “elite media,” which, for anyone who’s ever worked in media, “elite” or otherwise, is clearly a joke. At least in principle, and I think, by and large, the blue checkmark is designed to prevent scammers, malignant actors, and, on more than one occasion, sexual predators. I think pre-Musk Twitter was too power-flattering and institutional with how it handed them out, but some version of verification is, by definition, necessary for any Twitter or Twitter-like social media entity to operate without chaos and misinformation.
None of this is to say associated editors at Teen Vogue, or NBC, or Buzzfeed, of The New York Times are not without some power. They presumably have some editorial input into our media that molds public perception, though the limit and shape of this influence is established long before they are hired, or have any ideological say, by the corporations or billionaires writing their checks. Power exists on a gradient, and low-level editors and writers at publications are not very powerful at all, whereas high-status pundits, CNN personalities, and (select, long-term) Washington Post or New York Times columnists are often millionaires or close to it. (In the case of Thomas Friedman, he’s likely a billionaire himself.) When I say the word “elite media,” this is largely who I’m talking about, not copy editors at The Appleton Times Gazette who only have a blue checkmark because the public probably ought to know who semi-official reporters are in the event of a flooding or school shooting.
Being relatively powerless doesn’t make one immune to criticism, of course, myself included. I often criticize, with vigor, fairly low-level reporters who I see as being foot soldiers in a class war: Those who outright incite against homeless populations, publish overtly racist bile, or spread police propaganda without question. To me, they’re fair game, because they are actively harming society. It has an unavoidable element of vigilantism that’s never sat comfortably with me, but in my mind they’re fair game, class war is a war, and war requires one to take a side. There is, of course, room for gray area and nuance, but some reporting is so clearly anti-poor that naming and shaming is in order, even if the perpetrator only makes $55,000 a year and takes public transportation. It’s a messy byproduct of the media criticism trade, albeit, as I said, ad hoc and based on the personal judgment calls of one person.
Power in media is a complicated thing, and it’s understandable why some members of the general public could be confused about how it actually works. I drive a 2009 Acura TSX, but am accused of being a millionaire on an almost weekly basis because of a blue checkmark and decent amount of followers. I don’t think everyone confused by this arrangement is a rightwing troll. “The media” can often feel large and daunting, and mistrust of it, and those who occupy even its lowest ranks, is understandable. But I can assure you, reader, that the vast majority of people who have blue checkmarks are not “elite,” powerful, rich, or even that influential. It’s mostly something their bosses gave them so their publication would have a mark of respectability. Power lies with the people writing their checks, the faceless VC’s and corporate boards—who are most often not the public face, much less verified or someone you can yell at on Twitter. These are the true vectors of media influence. Get mad at them, and their drinking buddy Elon Musk, not Michigan State grads who make $55,000 a year doing fact checking at Vox.
Re: always having to be the good guy I am reminded by Chomsky’s discussion in “Understanding Power” that the US is always for peace. This was back in the 80s/90s but somebody had actually done a media study and found that the US was ALWAYS for peace, which is kind of funny because it not unreasonable that maybe “peace” in a particular situation might not be the best option. I agree that it is bizarre the way people seem to think have a blue check/big twitter following that you are some kind of “elite”. Like maybe but not necessarily???