Glamocracy’s Often a Waste of Space
By Kay Steiger - Jul 10th, 2008 at 11:34 amWhy oh why do girl blogs make women sound like idiots? Glamour’s blog, Glamocracy, has one-upped itself again. (Pretty much the only blogger I like there is Megan Carpentier, who also blogs for Jezebel.) In any case, good old MSM mag Glamour has published a post by right-wing hack and Town Hall blogger Amanda Carpenter declaring that she finds the “‘youth vote’ annoying.” Of course a conservative woman like Carpenter finds young people who trend heavily progressive actually showing up to vote annoying. Then the policies she supports are less popular.
But then, Fernanda Diaz writes a quasi-defense of young people that makes her sound uninformed. She says that Carpenter made a “bold statement” by declaring the youth vote is annoying. If Diaz knew anything about the political blogosphere, she would understand that Carpenter is not making anything close to a “bold statement,” but rather harping on the same old perspective she always does.
But Diaz agrees with Carpenter that stories about the youth vote are boring and present a “watered down” version of politics. That’s sometimes a fair criticism. Young people are just as informed about politics about older people. In some cases, young people are better informed than older generations. Media shouldn’t be so surprised when young people care. After all, plenty of issues, like the failing economy and the war, disproportionately affect our generation.
But if Diaz is going to write that media are too condescending to young people, then why does she make quite an unsophisticated argument–Obama is really inspiring to young people–and refer to us as “kids”? I’d say that’s pretty condescending.
Maybe Glamour should just save themselves from embarrassment (or hire some real bloggers who are more on Megan’s skill level) and not engage in arguments with Carpenter as if she’s saying anything thoughtful.
I must say, the ‘tude sported by Carpenter on the youth politics panel at the Conference on Tuesday was positively Coulter-esque. Thankfully, Maria Terésa Petersen of Voto Latino put her to shame.
It seems odd to me that Glamour even has a blog. Isn’t that kind of off–like Madonna writing children’s books?
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July 10th, 2008 at 7:34 pm