She's like the Kayleigh McEnany of the left. A pretty idiot who spends her time trolling every American with the most insane propaganda, almost as if she is aware of how stupid it is but is having a hoot seeing how many morons she can fool.
I enjoyed her early writing on internet culture, buuuuut... I was never going to actually watch any of the YouTube children she 'reported' on, so I just assumed her observations and analysis were astute. When she then started trying to report on more broadly-understood topics, I was shocked that she seemed to understand her subjects so little. I probably owe the YouTube children an apology; I wanted to understand the gossip about them without doing the work, and the end result was pretty embarrassing.
I sometimes wonder if her editors at NYT went through basically the same process--they were never going to check her portfolio in-depth because watching all the posts made by her subjects would feel like sticking needles in their eyes.
Exhausted Teachers Stuck in Locked Down Classroom get an Unexpected Jazz Concert Performed by Students who Learned Jazz from ChatGPT on Their Smartphones
I honestly think anything Taylor Lorenz writes or tweets should come with a version of the disclaimer you see before Sunday news shows “Taylor Lorenz does not represent the views of voters or public officials who identify as left of center or even far left. Her views of policing, covid, cell phones, gender, disability rights, race or quite frankly anything are hers and hers alone. In fact, for those of us left of Fascist, if we didn’t know better, we’d swear Taylor was a made up person created by Fox or Newsmax as the ultimate caricature of a Democrat so as to rile up their viewers in the most efficient manner possible. Thank you for your attention on this matter”.
Oh I was thinking that, just for once, this might work out for us. (By us, I mean, center-left moderates.)
As has been discussed here in the past, the left sometimes has a "left-wing person says insane thing online" problem.
But here, Taylor is saying the exact opposite of what I think, and sounding like a lunatic doing it.
So if she galvanizes reactionary opposition (to "cell phones for kids and in schools cuz they're great") and this helps broaden the base of support for school cell-phone bans, I'll take the bank-shot win?
The funny thing is, this take of Taylor’s might be one of her most right wing takes she’s ever had. Forget moderate left, her take is basically that a gigantic corporation (Apple) should be allowed to sell their products to kids completely free of any regulation. Like that is straight up pre Trump GOP economic orthodoxy.
The cell phone ban discourse is interesting because it (so far) cuts across current partisan lines. There’s sort of two disparate strands that are for cell phone bans in school. There’s the “tsk tsk tsk, these kids today” angle which is old as sliced bread (there’s a reason Helen Lovejoy exclaiming “oh please wont someone think of the children” became a running gag on The Simpsons) and there is the “giant corporation is trying to make money by harming children” take. One is definitely more culturally right and the other is more lefty.
I've noticed that a lot of "pro cell phone" takes (whether pro phones for adults or pro phones for kids) come from very online people, even some very online liberal/left/progressive people, who you wouldn't otherwise expect to take that view.
I think it's because all of those people have low or not-so-low grade addictions to social media and the idea that phone/social media use could be harmful is threatening to them.
Definitely part of it. I think related is algorithms on social media are designed to get more engagement. And there is probably nothing easier to engage parents than pumping their feed with all the ways their kids are in danger.
I mean this isn’t new. The “it bleeds itleads” adage to local news is a pretty old one (it’s basically why for decades polls will show that people think crime is much higher than it is in reality). Feel like Katie Couric made a living scaring her mostly female audience about all terrible new trends your kids (and let’s be real, daughters) might be in to*. But I think social media supercharges this stuff. Also think the explosion of “true crime” podcasts/documentaries don’t help. Think it’s how you get a sizable group of parents who think their kid is in constant danger of being abducted by some random person walking home from school when in reality this scenario is insanely rare (much more common is a close family member taking a child). Hence the anxiety if they are not checking in on their kid every hour they are not properly watching their kids**
* pretty sure Katie Couric completely created “rainbow parties” out of whole cloth. If they did become a thing, it’s almost certainly because of her reporting in a weird sort of “Streisand effect”
** I genuinely think this is a bigger part of the “why isn’t Gen Z dating and having sex?” story then we realize.
I'd argue that conservatives are not generally pro-corporation, only the ones in power who get handouts from them. Some right-wing voters may worship certain brands or billionaires, but there's probably just as many who view them as part of the Deep State. Even though Zuck and co have now swung right, I can't see any of the MAGA crowd deciding they're suddenly heroes...
The phones for a school shooter situation is so bonkers. What is the situation where your kid having a phone makes a difference? Every teacher already has a phone, so it’s not like your kid calling 911 is going to be the difference. The objection I keep seeing is that it’s so the kid can text “I love you” one last time, which is just so gross. Or so they can say “I’m okay”, which is something they can do from anyone’s phone if they escape.
If your kid is calling or texting during an emergency, they’re not focused on surviving. Sorry if you have to deal with 10 more minutes of fear, but it’s better to increase your kid’s chance of survival than to protect your feelings for a few minutes.
It's bonkers, but I wonder if it doesn't give us a glimpse of the underlying issue. This is my toy model...it's totally a straw man, so maybe IATA.
- The *parents* are really anxious about their children, and instead of managing the discomfort of that anxiety, they're giving into it by remaining in constant, inappropriate contact with their kids.
- Then when you ask the parents why they need the connectivity, they come up with the *most anxiety producing* example they can possibly imagine - the most frightening of all of their fears, namely a school shooting.
The reason I think this is important is that telling those parents "ha ha your feeling is dumb, let me explain why, tactically, the phone isn't going to be helpful during a real shooting"...that's going to do the opposite of convincing them...it's going to make the anxiety feel even stronger and they'll lean even harder into "must have phone connectivity with kid all the time".
So if I ever end up discussing this with one of those parents face to face, I hope what I will be able to do is:
- Put away the rant (which I clearly have a lot of) and
- Try to just feel some empathy for the difficulty of what I am asking of them.
I don't know that I'd convince anyone with "it's really hard being a parent and managing that anxiety of having a teenager out in the world, separate from us, facing real risk for the first time...but I think my job as a parent is to live with that anxiety so my children can grow to the next level and learn that they really are so very capable."
But I think it'd do better than "yeah there's no goddamn reason why your kid needs a phone." Even though I think this is true.
Some people don't understand the difference between the illusion of control and actual effectiveness, especially when losing the illusion of control is better for increasing effectiveness.
I can't speak to every school's policies, but we literally teach them in our drills that they have to put their phones away during a lockdown so that (a) the light / noise / random postings they suddenly decide to make on social media don't provide information to the shooter, (b) they don't start or add to a mass panic by texting everyone they know "omg I'm so scared we're all gonna die", and (c) they pay attention to what's happening around them.
Or every kid's phone gets put into one of those little tech sensory deprivation pouches on top of their desk at the start of class, and if they take it out they get a detention or whatever (if schools are even doing those still). That way, if there's an in-class emergency, the student still has their phone on them, and if the parent has an emergency, they can call the school's reception, like parents have done for decades.
I could see a potential use for cell phones during a school shooting if a kid was hiding in an area without an adult and knew where in the building the shooter was. Like - kid is washing his hands in the bathroom when he hears gunfire directly outside, so he hides in a stall and calls 911. 911 already knows from previous calls that there's a school shooting going on, but were unaware of the shooter's current exact location.
I don't think that possibility is large enough to justify kids having cell phones in classes, though. Probably there's a teacher nearby who has a phone and can call to give 911 the shooter's location.
"The barrel must be broken" easily one of the most cringe-inducing posts I've ever seen. I know that guy's paid well to stoke the culture war fires, it just blows my mind that there are other people who will read that as some sort of empowering rally cry
It’s ludicrous. Companies redesign their logos all the time, it’s not some anti-American plot. I’d say it was good that Rufo was focused on something this stupid to keep him busy and away from our schools, but I suspect he feels able to take up causes like this because his larger battles have all been won.
Besides the logo, it's hilarious watching people proclaim that Cracker Barrel is a part of their heritage. The food is about the same quality that you get at Applebee's. It's a chain restaurant version of a meat-and-three, which *is* an actual part of American (specifically Southern) culinary heritage.
There was no authenticity or heritage to degrade there; it's like saying that Chipotle changing their menu is erasing Hispanic heritage.
A few years ago I remember seeing a chart showing that counties with Cracker Barrel overwhelmingly went for Trump while counties with Whole Foods overwhelmingly went for Biden. So this must be downstream of that.
Re: “Thank goodness she adopted a child who needed a home instead of getting a surrogate”: I think that’s more about ethical objections to surrogacy than a commentary on the adoption system.
Is Taylor Lorenz the journalist who was all cagey for years about how old she is? I think she is.
Edit: the new Cracker Barrel logo isn’t “woke,” but it’s bland and boring. Bring back the old one!
Arguably, private infant adoption is ethically worse than surrogacy but admittedly this is something where a lot of people disagree. My piece on adoption gets into my beliefs in more detail.
Yes Taylor Lorenz was always extremely cagey about her age, but frankly that’s, like, the 20th weirdest thing about her. Feel free to go down the Taylor Lorenz rabbit hole if you want that good car crash rubbernecking vibe.
When I was a senior in high school (January 2014), my school went on lockdown (it turned out to be a false alarm but was very much not a drill and we thought something bad was happening). Kids literally started publicly tweeting that they were hiding under the tables in the library, and my school had to clarify afterwards that you shouldn’t publicize your location during a lockdown since it defeats the purpose of hiding.
People who argue phones are necessary to keep kids safe in case of shootings are overestimating the ability of the average teen to think clearly in an emergency.
Heck, the ability of the average person in general to keep their head in an emergency.
We practice fire drills with our students not because they're complex ("leave building, meet teacher") but because firefighters see how badly (and tragically) grown-ass adults sometimes mess up this basic activity when they start to panic.
Plenty of kids had smart phones when I was in junior high and high school. We weren’t allowed to use them in class because it was a distraction. Not sure why this is controversial now.
I have never met a parent who insists that their kid should have a phone on their person in my class at all times. (A few want their kids to be able to access it if needed, so in a box in a room somewhere maybe.)
Heck, almost all my *students* think their phones are bad for them (if I'm not actively trying to get them to put their phones away at that exact moment).
They like being able to play Clash Royale with their friends but they are fully aware of how it's messing up their attention span and learning ability by the time they hit high school.
It’s controversial because I believe only California is banning phones and it still hasn’t kicked in yet. So many things have eroded teacher/school authority so kids run rampant with phone use.
Virginia has a ban launching this school year. Our county was piloting it last year and honestly, it seemed to work fine. Kids complained but that was to be expected.
Governor Kathy Hochul today announced that New York is becoming the largest state in the nation to require statewide, bell-to-bell restrictions on smartphones in K-12 schools (5/06/25)
The Cracker Barrel hullaballoo wasn't just about the logo, but also the redesign of the interior, which adds to the hilarity - the new decor is 100% Chip & Joanna Gaines white wood panelling and black trim, the least woke design on the planet. Points to Christopher Rufo for ignoring it for an entire morning before realizing an anti-woke hysteria where he's not at the forefront is an existential threat to his whole scam and about-facing in the most shameless manner imaginable.
Incidentally, I passed a Cracker Barrel (old logo) while driving through a different part of town yesterday, and the parking lot was surprisingly packed.
"But then he completely changed his entire ideology and is convinced that *this time* his new ideology perfectly explains the entire universe" is more or less Sohrab's entire personality, so him no longer being MAGA was news to me - but doesn't surprise me 😅
As the parent of Zoomers I thought post all of the research showing its ill effects that they'd be more parents restricting smart phones/social media. But my poor 12 year old is literally the only one of her friends without a smart phone . .it's extremely depressing. Parents have as much FOMO for their kids as their kids do; extremely pathetic.
I’m upper middle class and so are most of the parents in my social circles. They are all extremely well-informed of the smartphone risks and they almost all give their children smartphones by middle school. It’s not a lack of information, it’s largely being so afraid of their children being left behind socially that they give in and get the phones. I know child psychologists whose kids have phones in elementary school.
In 99% of cases I’ve seen amongst the UMC, it’s that the parent will not say no.
Omg this is nothing new but online far right actually get mad at banal stuff is hilarious considering they constantly have to say “libs are mad at xxx”(doesn’t matter if it’s true or not just like the sorority discourse) for their sanity ig
And as in past CHH article, I doubt anyone on GOP side says this is bad for GOP to have this insane meltdown lol
This is truly the jumping the shark moment. All the other stupid culture war stuff at least has some germ of an idea, Cracker Barrel has nothing besides we need a new woke boogie man for the week
From the outside, the fact that any school has smart phones allowed at all blows my mind.
I'm old enough that we didn't have even flip phones in high school, but in math we had the TI graphing calculators and...if the teacher caught you playing games on it during class, he would take it away. Cuz you're supposed to be paying attention in class and not screwing around on a device.
But I suspect phones being permitted seems crazy to me because my mental model of how school works doesn't involve the part where the administration has to deal with the parents. :-) :-(
Taylor Lorenz also opposed a new law in Utah that offers some protections for kids on family channels, basically just trying to limit exploitation and ensure they get a share of the profits. According to her it’s anti-freedom of speech.
I honestly think she’s on the Meta/TikTok payroll to launder what’s best for them on a corporate level into left-wing terms.
The fact that actual human beings take Taylor Lorenz seriously is a mystery for the ages.
She seems like a character from the Arrested Development reboot somehow became a real person.
never heard of her until today but her takes have shown me i will not be paying her any further attention
Smart move.
Once upon a time, I really enjoyed her reporting on internet culture and the tech industry. Somehow, that was just a slippery slope to darker things.
She's like the Kayleigh McEnany of the left. A pretty idiot who spends her time trolling every American with the most insane propaganda, almost as if she is aware of how stupid it is but is having a hoot seeing how many morons she can fool.
I enjoyed her early writing on internet culture, buuuuut... I was never going to actually watch any of the YouTube children she 'reported' on, so I just assumed her observations and analysis were astute. When she then started trying to report on more broadly-understood topics, I was shocked that she seemed to understand her subjects so little. I probably owe the YouTube children an apology; I wanted to understand the gossip about them without doing the work, and the end result was pretty embarrassing.
I sometimes wonder if her editors at NYT went through basically the same process--they were never going to check her portfolio in-depth because watching all the posts made by her subjects would feel like sticking needles in their eyes.
Exhausted Teachers Stuck in Locked Down Classroom get an Unexpected Jazz Concert Performed by Students who Learned Jazz from ChatGPT on Their Smartphones
I honestly think anything Taylor Lorenz writes or tweets should come with a version of the disclaimer you see before Sunday news shows “Taylor Lorenz does not represent the views of voters or public officials who identify as left of center or even far left. Her views of policing, covid, cell phones, gender, disability rights, race or quite frankly anything are hers and hers alone. In fact, for those of us left of Fascist, if we didn’t know better, we’d swear Taylor was a made up person created by Fox or Newsmax as the ultimate caricature of a Democrat so as to rile up their viewers in the most efficient manner possible. Thank you for your attention on this matter”.
Oh I was thinking that, just for once, this might work out for us. (By us, I mean, center-left moderates.)
As has been discussed here in the past, the left sometimes has a "left-wing person says insane thing online" problem.
But here, Taylor is saying the exact opposite of what I think, and sounding like a lunatic doing it.
So if she galvanizes reactionary opposition (to "cell phones for kids and in schools cuz they're great") and this helps broaden the base of support for school cell-phone bans, I'll take the bank-shot win?
The funny thing is, this take of Taylor’s might be one of her most right wing takes she’s ever had. Forget moderate left, her take is basically that a gigantic corporation (Apple) should be allowed to sell their products to kids completely free of any regulation. Like that is straight up pre Trump GOP economic orthodoxy.
The cell phone ban discourse is interesting because it (so far) cuts across current partisan lines. There’s sort of two disparate strands that are for cell phone bans in school. There’s the “tsk tsk tsk, these kids today” angle which is old as sliced bread (there’s a reason Helen Lovejoy exclaiming “oh please wont someone think of the children” became a running gag on The Simpsons) and there is the “giant corporation is trying to make money by harming children” take. One is definitely more culturally right and the other is more lefty.
I've noticed that a lot of "pro cell phone" takes (whether pro phones for adults or pro phones for kids) come from very online people, even some very online liberal/left/progressive people, who you wouldn't otherwise expect to take that view.
I think it's because all of those people have low or not-so-low grade addictions to social media and the idea that phone/social media use could be harmful is threatening to them.
Definitely part of it. I think related is algorithms on social media are designed to get more engagement. And there is probably nothing easier to engage parents than pumping their feed with all the ways their kids are in danger.
I mean this isn’t new. The “it bleeds itleads” adage to local news is a pretty old one (it’s basically why for decades polls will show that people think crime is much higher than it is in reality). Feel like Katie Couric made a living scaring her mostly female audience about all terrible new trends your kids (and let’s be real, daughters) might be in to*. But I think social media supercharges this stuff. Also think the explosion of “true crime” podcasts/documentaries don’t help. Think it’s how you get a sizable group of parents who think their kid is in constant danger of being abducted by some random person walking home from school when in reality this scenario is insanely rare (much more common is a close family member taking a child). Hence the anxiety if they are not checking in on their kid every hour they are not properly watching their kids**
* pretty sure Katie Couric completely created “rainbow parties” out of whole cloth. If they did become a thing, it’s almost certainly because of her reporting in a weird sort of “Streisand effect”
** I genuinely think this is a bigger part of the “why isn’t Gen Z dating and having sex?” story then we realize.
I think this is unquestionably true, actually. Whether or not they're sufficiently self-aware is the only question.
I'd argue that conservatives are not generally pro-corporation, only the ones in power who get handouts from them. Some right-wing voters may worship certain brands or billionaires, but there's probably just as many who view them as part of the Deep State. Even though Zuck and co have now swung right, I can't see any of the MAGA crowd deciding they're suddenly heroes...
The phones for a school shooter situation is so bonkers. What is the situation where your kid having a phone makes a difference? Every teacher already has a phone, so it’s not like your kid calling 911 is going to be the difference. The objection I keep seeing is that it’s so the kid can text “I love you” one last time, which is just so gross. Or so they can say “I’m okay”, which is something they can do from anyone’s phone if they escape.
If your kid is calling or texting during an emergency, they’re not focused on surviving. Sorry if you have to deal with 10 more minutes of fear, but it’s better to increase your kid’s chance of survival than to protect your feelings for a few minutes.
It's bonkers, but I wonder if it doesn't give us a glimpse of the underlying issue. This is my toy model...it's totally a straw man, so maybe IATA.
- The *parents* are really anxious about their children, and instead of managing the discomfort of that anxiety, they're giving into it by remaining in constant, inappropriate contact with their kids.
- Then when you ask the parents why they need the connectivity, they come up with the *most anxiety producing* example they can possibly imagine - the most frightening of all of their fears, namely a school shooting.
The reason I think this is important is that telling those parents "ha ha your feeling is dumb, let me explain why, tactically, the phone isn't going to be helpful during a real shooting"...that's going to do the opposite of convincing them...it's going to make the anxiety feel even stronger and they'll lean even harder into "must have phone connectivity with kid all the time".
So if I ever end up discussing this with one of those parents face to face, I hope what I will be able to do is:
- Put away the rant (which I clearly have a lot of) and
- Try to just feel some empathy for the difficulty of what I am asking of them.
I don't know that I'd convince anyone with "it's really hard being a parent and managing that anxiety of having a teenager out in the world, separate from us, facing real risk for the first time...but I think my job as a parent is to live with that anxiety so my children can grow to the next level and learn that they really are so very capable."
But I think it'd do better than "yeah there's no goddamn reason why your kid needs a phone." Even though I think this is true.
Every political thing since Covid can boil down to emotional irrationality. Could say it’s always been this way *insert astronaut holding a gun meme*
Some people don't understand the difference between the illusion of control and actual effectiveness, especially when losing the illusion of control is better for increasing effectiveness.
I can't speak to every school's policies, but we literally teach them in our drills that they have to put their phones away during a lockdown so that (a) the light / noise / random postings they suddenly decide to make on social media don't provide information to the shooter, (b) they don't start or add to a mass panic by texting everyone they know "omg I'm so scared we're all gonna die", and (c) they pay attention to what's happening around them.
Also, they don’t need a smartphone to text if that’s the real justification. A basic flip phone would work just as well for emergencies
Or every kid's phone gets put into one of those little tech sensory deprivation pouches on top of their desk at the start of class, and if they take it out they get a detention or whatever (if schools are even doing those still). That way, if there's an in-class emergency, the student still has their phone on them, and if the parent has an emergency, they can call the school's reception, like parents have done for decades.
I could see a potential use for cell phones during a school shooting if a kid was hiding in an area without an adult and knew where in the building the shooter was. Like - kid is washing his hands in the bathroom when he hears gunfire directly outside, so he hides in a stall and calls 911. 911 already knows from previous calls that there's a school shooting going on, but were unaware of the shooter's current exact location.
I don't think that possibility is large enough to justify kids having cell phones in classes, though. Probably there's a teacher nearby who has a phone and can call to give 911 the shooter's location.
"The barrel must be broken" easily one of the most cringe-inducing posts I've ever seen. I know that guy's paid well to stoke the culture war fires, it just blows my mind that there are other people who will read that as some sort of empowering rally cry
It’s ludicrous. Companies redesign their logos all the time, it’s not some anti-American plot. I’d say it was good that Rufo was focused on something this stupid to keep him busy and away from our schools, but I suspect he feels able to take up causes like this because his larger battles have all been won.
If Rufo wants to rage at Cracker Barrel, I say we wish him well in his endeavors. :-)
“Phones don’t ruin your mental health”
Taylor Lorenz
is equal to
“Plastic surgery doesn’t ruin your face”
Michael Jackson
God DAMN
Besides the logo, it's hilarious watching people proclaim that Cracker Barrel is a part of their heritage. The food is about the same quality that you get at Applebee's. It's a chain restaurant version of a meat-and-three, which *is* an actual part of American (specifically Southern) culinary heritage.
There was no authenticity or heritage to degrade there; it's like saying that Chipotle changing their menu is erasing Hispanic heritage.
A few years ago I remember seeing a chart showing that counties with Cracker Barrel overwhelmingly went for Trump while counties with Whole Foods overwhelmingly went for Biden. So this must be downstream of that.
At the same time though, if a liberal actually proclaimed that Whole Foods was part of their heritage, everyone else would think they're embarrassing.
Re: “Thank goodness she adopted a child who needed a home instead of getting a surrogate”: I think that’s more about ethical objections to surrogacy than a commentary on the adoption system.
Is Taylor Lorenz the journalist who was all cagey for years about how old she is? I think she is.
Edit: the new Cracker Barrel logo isn’t “woke,” but it’s bland and boring. Bring back the old one!
Arguably, private infant adoption is ethically worse than surrogacy but admittedly this is something where a lot of people disagree. My piece on adoption gets into my beliefs in more detail.
Yes Taylor Lorenz was always extremely cagey about her age, but frankly that’s, like, the 20th weirdest thing about her. Feel free to go down the Taylor Lorenz rabbit hole if you want that good car crash rubbernecking vibe.
Oooh, fun. Where should I start?
Infinite Scroll has a few decent posts about her whole gist if you care to look
When I was a senior in high school (January 2014), my school went on lockdown (it turned out to be a false alarm but was very much not a drill and we thought something bad was happening). Kids literally started publicly tweeting that they were hiding under the tables in the library, and my school had to clarify afterwards that you shouldn’t publicize your location during a lockdown since it defeats the purpose of hiding.
People who argue phones are necessary to keep kids safe in case of shootings are overestimating the ability of the average teen to think clearly in an emergency.
Heck, the ability of the average person in general to keep their head in an emergency.
We practice fire drills with our students not because they're complex ("leave building, meet teacher") but because firefighters see how badly (and tragically) grown-ass adults sometimes mess up this basic activity when they start to panic.
Plenty of kids had smart phones when I was in junior high and high school. We weren’t allowed to use them in class because it was a distraction. Not sure why this is controversial now.
I have never met a parent who insists that their kid should have a phone on their person in my class at all times. (A few want their kids to be able to access it if needed, so in a box in a room somewhere maybe.)
Heck, almost all my *students* think their phones are bad for them (if I'm not actively trying to get them to put their phones away at that exact moment).
They like being able to play Clash Royale with their friends but they are fully aware of how it's messing up their attention span and learning ability by the time they hit high school.
It’s controversial because I believe only California is banning phones and it still hasn’t kicked in yet. So many things have eroded teacher/school authority so kids run rampant with phone use.
Virginia has a ban launching this school year. Our county was piloting it last year and honestly, it seemed to work fine. Kids complained but that was to be expected.
Governor Kathy Hochul today announced that New York is becoming the largest state in the nation to require statewide, bell-to-bell restrictions on smartphones in K-12 schools (5/06/25)
The Cracker Barrel hullaballoo wasn't just about the logo, but also the redesign of the interior, which adds to the hilarity - the new decor is 100% Chip & Joanna Gaines white wood panelling and black trim, the least woke design on the planet. Points to Christopher Rufo for ignoring it for an entire morning before realizing an anti-woke hysteria where he's not at the forefront is an existential threat to his whole scam and about-facing in the most shameless manner imaginable.
Incidentally, I passed a Cracker Barrel (old logo) while driving through a different part of town yesterday, and the parking lot was surprisingly packed.
Whenever I ask for an example of an actual modern conservative intellectual, people answer Rufo, which seems like such a self-own.
Sadly intellectual and shameless partisan are not mutually exclusive
Is this answer allowed to be a British person? If so, I'd say Douglas Murray.
"But then he completely changed his entire ideology and is convinced that *this time* his new ideology perfectly explains the entire universe" is more or less Sohrab's entire personality, so him no longer being MAGA was news to me - but doesn't surprise me 😅
The man is an eternal fresh convert to something.
At the very least, there should be no phones in school.From bell to bell.
Kids should be paying attention in class and they should be playing with their friends.When not in class
And personally, kids, you shouldn't get a a smartphone before eighteen or social media before eighteen
As the parent of Zoomers I thought post all of the research showing its ill effects that they'd be more parents restricting smart phones/social media. But my poor 12 year old is literally the only one of her friends without a smart phone . .it's extremely depressing. Parents have as much FOMO for their kids as their kids do; extremely pathetic.
A lot of parents are uninformed.
Either that don't know their job is to say NO
I’m upper middle class and so are most of the parents in my social circles. They are all extremely well-informed of the smartphone risks and they almost all give their children smartphones by middle school. It’s not a lack of information, it’s largely being so afraid of their children being left behind socially that they give in and get the phones. I know child psychologists whose kids have phones in elementary school.
In 99% of cases I’ve seen amongst the UMC, it’s that the parent will not say no.
Strong agree with this. Homeschooling was the only reason we were able to defer smartphone use for our son until age 16.
Her referring to a cell phone as a word processor when no child on this planet has used their phone to process words is really something.
Omg this is nothing new but online far right actually get mad at banal stuff is hilarious considering they constantly have to say “libs are mad at xxx”(doesn’t matter if it’s true or not just like the sorority discourse) for their sanity ig
And as in past CHH article, I doubt anyone on GOP side says this is bad for GOP to have this insane meltdown lol
This is truly the jumping the shark moment. All the other stupid culture war stuff at least has some germ of an idea, Cracker Barrel has nothing besides we need a new woke boogie man for the week
Yeah exactly- like woke has become some type of catch all lingo meaning “anything we don’t like” on the far right end I imagine.
And I start to wonder their manufacturing of lib rage is basically the some weird psychological projection of their weird behavior patterns
From the outside, the fact that any school has smart phones allowed at all blows my mind.
I'm old enough that we didn't have even flip phones in high school, but in math we had the TI graphing calculators and...if the teacher caught you playing games on it during class, he would take it away. Cuz you're supposed to be paying attention in class and not screwing around on a device.
But I suspect phones being permitted seems crazy to me because my mental model of how school works doesn't involve the part where the administration has to deal with the parents. :-) :-(
Taylor Lorenz also opposed a new law in Utah that offers some protections for kids on family channels, basically just trying to limit exploitation and ensure they get a share of the profits. According to her it’s anti-freedom of speech.
I honestly think she’s on the Meta/TikTok payroll to launder what’s best for them on a corporate level into left-wing terms.