What is it? — Like every woman who writes opinionated things in public spaces, I get hate mail. Sometimes it’s hate email; sometimes it’s a DM; other times it’s anonymous mail sent to my house; a weird voicemail; whatever. I’ve been writing opinionated things in public for almost twenty years now and this is…

Here’s why. — The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is an event of relevance to 0.00000005% of people, but I loathe it because it’s a nationally televised event where the rest of America sees a bunch of journalists and politicians and celebrities rubbing shoulders in the same room, and this reinforces the conspiracy that…

Elon Musk aside, Twitter is still important if you have a personal brand — I’ve written about why journalists who are not tenured at big institutions need to think about how they present themselves online and in public, and that the cumulative effects of their work and how they do this constitutes a “personal brand.” I understand why a lot of people find the…

Thank you for your unsolicited feedback. — Hi. I see that you have sent me an: _ email _ DM _ form submission from a fake email address Your complaint is that: _ I have pronouns in my Twitter bio. (If so, please read this FAQ.) _ You believe I should… *checks notes*… “get raped.” (Thanks for sending this from your work address. It makes it easy to forward to…

Toxic fandom, the Internet, and mid-life — Thanks to Rusty Foster’s addictive and hilarious newsletter, Today in Tabs, I just read this completely bonkers story about TikTok influencer William White**, a 22-year-old who sings 80s songs, and whose primary fan base is apparently women of (more or less) my demographic: middle-aged moms. You really have to read…

Grandpa Pickleball, Alvin Bragg, Donald Trump, Kalief Browder, and a personal story — Let’s start off easy, with a recent story about a guy I’ve come to think of as “Grandpa Pickleball.” On March 14, a 71-year-old retired civil engineer named Arslan Guney used a marker to delineate pickleball boundaries on the floor of a public court in Denver, Colorado. Guney, an avid…

Here’s how to build one — A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column about why journalists need to pay attention to their “brands,” and this is the promised service-y follow up column about what you need to do at minimum if you are not already a rich and famous person who either does not…

Trick question. You already are one, whether you want to be or not. — This week’s intra-mural media kerfluffle revolves around backlash to the idea that journalists need to be brands themselves — apart from the institutions they work for. It was precipitated by an article in Insider about The New York Times and retention problems potentially caused by the Times’ approach to outside…

What we can learn from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — Like everyone else, I’ve been glued to cable news and the internet for the last few days following the events in Ukraine, and also like everyone, I’ve been awed by how Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has risen to the occasion in a way that the world did not expect. Zelenskyy…