Thursday , March 28 2024

An open letter to #BuzzFeed

Dear BuzzFeed,

Forgive me for writing about you in the third person from hereon in (and please do read the whole thing before you let it you piss you off),

Whilst I’m the antithesis of a ‘liberal’ I’d probably never claim to be a Trump supporter.

However, one utterly fantastic thing came out of today’s total clusterfuckery of journalism: the complete and utter death of the notion that the whinging millennial ‘journalists’ at ‘BuzzFeed’ could carry themselves as an actual news organisation.

Zero care for journalistic standards; bragging about their voracious story-hunting when every credible news organisation passed on the gold (or yellow?) flecked turd of a nonsensical story 6 months ago; and a total disregard for the ‘anti-fake-news agenda’ they preach.

Now the moronic faux-journalists they employ can go back to ‘writing’ (embedding tweets written by more interesting people than they) student-politic, lefty, shit-stirring, clickbait listicles.

I look forward to less ‘oooh we did an investigation thingy and although we have no corroborating source we’ll slag off public figures because we disagree with them,’ and more ‘top 15 reasons why Beyoncé is like sooo great.’ Please, PLEASE, note the sarcasm here. We’ve all had enough of your constant genuflecting at the altar of the one member of Destiny’s Child who actually prolonged her career. 

Also, learn what “ICONIC” means you thesaurusless, hyperbolic, safe-space-claiming, bedwetters. If you use it in every third article it slightly devalues the word.

For reference:

ICONIC: Prince’s Super Bowl Half Time Performance; The Blues Brothers (I’ll fight you on this); The West Wing series 1 and 2 (peak Sorkin).

IRONIC: The insistence by BuzzFeed ‘journalists’ that XXXX flash-in-the-pan celebrity/craze/instagram comeback is something that will live on for generations to come.

But seriously, you should be so much more.

SERIOUSLY.

You should be playing a key role in bringing teenagers into a world that they need to be informed about.

You should be a neutral source of news, with opinions from both sides of the aisle.

You have a responsibility, having sucked in tweens and teens with your talk of ‘LOLs’ and your insistence that certain things – no matter how inane – are MUST SEE, to show the voters of tomorrow a fair representation of global politics, to educate and trust these kids to make up their own mind, and to stop indoctrinating them with your own liberal views. Back your own argument, and let them make up their own mind.

By the way, the ‘super cool trendy dad’ use of swearing in your article titles is jaded and transparent. If you want to be taken seriously, stop being VICE-lite, and start being your own entity.

So here is some advice from someone who, in the grand scheme of things, means nothing to BuzzFeed HQ.

Yet I’ll offer it anyway:

Get a grip.

Buy a thesaurus.

Wander out of your safe space and experience the real world.

Read a book that opposes your default views. Talk to (educated) people who fundamentally disagree with you.

Learn to debate and to understand opposing position.

STOP SAYING IRONIC, SLAY, and CLAPBACK.

Also, Beyoncé is not a deity. Neither is the bald girl from Stranger Things. Or Meryl Streep (although she’s possibly the greatest actress ever).

Stop worshipping celebrity; involve yourselves in genuine discourse; and realise that maybe – just maybe – the average man or woman on the street has something more interesting to say than the Hollywood elite that you insist on deifying.

In summary: grow the fuck up BuzzFeed.

If you want to be a serious news organisation, subscribe to serious journalistic standards.

If you want to be a mouthpiece for genuine Feminism, then stop letting your employees take the easy, pandering, way out by taking shots at the average, white, male.

Equality is equality, be it based on race, gender, or class: we should be picking each other up rather than dragging others down. Which is exactly what you do.

You have an audience of millennials in both Britain and the USA that are petrified about Brexit/Trump.

You have a chance to do something great.

Fuck the shitty listicles (although keep the animal ones – they’re quite delightful) and do something important.

You can make a difference in the world. Not by being snarky and negative, but by using your reach to get more young people involved in politics, and encourage them to use their current situation (even if they/you don’t like it) for good.

Or you can live up to your sad stereotype and stay whining in the corner. The ball’s in your court.

Fondest Regards,

JSWD

This post was originally published by the author: http://www.mediatory-uk.com/notebook/2017/1/12/its-been-a-while-but-heres-an-open-letter-to-buzzfeed

About Jack Dacombe

Jack is a freelance writer based in London. He writes about UK politics and social issues on the Daily Globe and at www.mediatory-uk.com.

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