What the hell, RVA Magazine?

Some of my fellow Richmonders have heard of this bullshit already, but I feel the need to have my own little rant about it. 

For those of you who don’t know, RVA Magazine recently published an article linking Ugg boots to varying degrees of “whoredom,” labeling it as satire. Uh, no. Satire is nowhere near what this article was doing. It was utterly and overtly sexist and short-sighted. What infuriates me further is that the editor isn’t backing down at all, really, and is even defending it, brushing off the sexist attitude as no big deal and a freedom of speech thing. IT IS A BIG DEAL. Shit like this article, if not as blunt, are written everyday. I am so tired of the internalization of sexism and having people be “ok” with it. While I am not happy at all about the fact that this article got any further than Britt Sebastian’s (the author) computer, I am happy that there has been such a backlash. About damn time. 

The actual article has since been taken down from RVA Magazine’s site (a problem in and of itself since it then becomes about a silencing of those voices that offer debate and valid points on this shitty article), but the following link has the full article and commentary along with it. 

http://jezebel.com/5878440/did-you-know-uggs-mean-you-have-chlamydia

Carl Athey sums up exactly how I feel about it in a great way below:

“RVA has been running this column for a while now, and it’s been pretty consistently terrible, but Britt’s newest “Fashion Rant” is total trash. It’s an astonishingly bad piece of writing, but the real problem is what he’s saying, not how poorly he says it. There’s a wealth of violent attitudes and words directed at women in this article. People seem to think it’s acceptable because it’s “satire,” but after reading it I can’t say that I classify it as such. Satire is meant to scorn absurd institutions, not uphold them. There is no societal vice being exposed here; he’s just being a sexist asshole. 

It’s really disappointing that RVA would run this column, especially this most recent pissing of words. To their credit, they’ve published some really progressive, generally coherent writing in contrast to shit like this, but that just seems to show that they lack a filter. Publishing anything is admirable from a First Amendment perspective, but good journalism is not completely devoid of any sort of conscientious influence. You have to make choices about what you publish. RVA is lacking in selectivity, and it’s a real problem. Their stance isn’t one of anti-censorship; it’s one of anti-consideration. 

The real tragedy is this—I give zero fucks about boots. They simply don’t interest me. If I were bound by law, every Sunday, to be either kicked in the groin by someone wearing steel-toed boots or to spend a few hours discussing the merits and handicaps of wearing steel-toed boots whilst kicking someone in the groin, even if the person I was forced to converse with was really nice, and wasn’t a sexist loser, and was genuinely interested in boots and groin-kicking in a disturbingly enthusiastic but undeniably kind of endearing way, and their enthusiasm allowed the two of us to have some really decent conversations despite coming from completely different backgrounds and experiences in how we relate to and experience boots, in the world, on a day-to-day basis, I would seriously consider taking the kick in the groin, because I just really don’t want to spend that much time talking about boots. Yet, here I am. What a fucking hypocrite.”

 -Carl Athey  

Carl is just one of many voices that have written wonderful responses to this horrible article. 

Oy vay.

wannabe sand rash

California in less than a week!

I can’t wait to see my friends there and to eat so much and to get into Yoda’s Brain and to be in nicer weather and to walk around on the Pacific’s beach and to see the sights and to just be there.

I think Wiz Khalifa got it right: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS2oOP4iXf8&fb_source=message