Actually, It’s The Washington Post That’s Bad

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It started with Salon. Then Gawker. Then Tumblr. Then Facebook. Then Twitter. Then people on the street. Then the guy that cuts my hair. Then my parents. It’s hard to deny at this point – the results are in: people hate Thought Catalog.

But why? Is it because we dare to publish controversial material? Is it because Thought Catalog caters to “navel-gazing millennials” – soft, privileged baby-adults, delicately meandering through a safeguarded existential crisis like a six pound bowling ball rolling down a well-oiled lane, lubricated and protected from the friction of social immobility by their class and race, bouncing between the bumpers of financial security and malignant narcissism, hurtling towards their ultimate goal – ten pins of listicle items, each one more thoroughly overwrought in metaphor than the last? Is that why they hate us? Or is it because they can’t face the truth: that Thought Catalog is actually good?

Guess what folks, it’s the latter.

Yup. It’s just jealousy. All these other publications despise us. Gawker even went as far as calling us a “white supremacist website.” And while that may be true, it doesn’t change the fact that Thought Catalog is the only media outlet in the business that sets out explicitly to catalog all thoughts, not just the ones that are completely thought out or morally sound. Thought Catalog isn’t just the name of the website, folks, it’s our ideology, and it’s the reason we scare these lower-media types that flaunt their quote-unquote integrity. So they lash out, and they use any available opportunity to throw salt at the number one player in the game.

The latest salvo in the media War on Thought comes from the Washington Post – a once respected paper of record. In a slanderous and, frankly, rude piece, Tim Herrera assertively submits that Thought Catalog is “one of the most reviled websites on the internet.” And he presents that statement as an objective fact rather than an opinion stemming from a place of hatred and jealousy. Really, Tim? One of the most reviled websites? Disliked for sure, but reviled? And the /most/ reviled? What about Stormfront or 4chan? What about the Klan’s website? What about nimp dot org? Are you conveniently forgetting all these websites in your estimation of “most” reviled? Perhaps I should do a quick Google search for child pornography and provide you with some more examples of, arguably, websites much worse than Thought Catalog? Perhaps I should link you to a page I saw where a man jams a keyhole saw into his urethra? Have you ever seen a guy bleed to death after shoving lightbulbs into his anus? Maybe you should do a little research and rethink your “most reviled” list, Timmy.

Herrera goes on, citing former Thought Catalog contributors who express disappointment in the direction the site has taken after the relatively recent addition of writers like McInnes, Anthony Rogers, and that PTSD guy who hates women. But these disillusioned contributors are former contributors for a reason – they ran out of thoughts. That’s the only rule here at Thought Catalog; if you want to work here, you have to catalog. Always Be Cataloging. It’s a thing we say around the office; and then I show people my watch and everyone has to compliment my hair. I, personally, cataloged over nine thousand thoughts last year. That’s who the fuck I am. Who the fuck are you, Tim Herrera?

And all this hue and cry for what? To demonstrate a patent falsehood, that if true, would be self-evident. To perpetuate the great media lie – that Thought Catalog is bad. Well, guess what friends? Thought Catalog isn’t bad. It’s actually good. It’s the Washington Post that’s bad, and it doesn’t take much effort to realize it. What we’re dealing with here – with Herrera and the Washington Post at large – is a case of who smelt it dealt it.

But just how is the Washington Post bad, you ask? Hell, just look at the name. The Post? What does that mean – do you mean letters or a physical post? Why so vague? And what’s Washington? The city or the state? Or do you mean Washington the man? Nobody knows. They obfuscate their identity on purpose. You see, in just two words, the Post has accomplished their goal – deceiving and confusing their audience with words, to create an illusion of authority. Thought Catalog on the other hand is straight forward, and our name gets its message across, and lets you get straight to the good ass content. We’re about providing people with lists and honest (and sometimes hatey) speech, not “information” and critical opinion from self-appointed and sometimes regular-appointed experts.

Even at its best, the Washington Post is bad. Their most historic and well-known piece of reporting was Woodward and Bernstein’s coverage of the Watergate scandal which ultimately led to Nixon’s resignation. At face value, it’s some solid investigative journalism. But it’s important to remember that it took two reporters to do one person’s job, and they nicknamed their source of information after a pornography film. Real mature guys. You know who else would do that? Someone who isn’t even in their twenties. It’s almost as if Woodward and Bernstein thought it would be hilarious to interject potty humor into the greatest American political crisis of all time, like two children in the bathroom at the White House, playing with doodoo in the toilet and smearing it all over the wall – writing stuff like “I love poop,” and “I love to eat diapers.” Then they kiss the poop and say the poop is good when actually poop is bad. It begs the question, are they even mature adults, or just petulant children gallivanting about as journalists for literal shits and giggles – idiotic trolls just trying to get a rise out of people? They may tolerate that kind of buffoonery over at the Post, but not here at Thought Catalog.

But perhaps the most damning aspect of the Watergate coverage was its nomenclature. Watergate, the name of the hotel where the Nixon’s goons burglarized the DNC headquarters, has gone on to become synonymous with scandal itself, and –gate now serves as a suffix for even the mildest faux-pas that drifts into the political arena. It’s quite nauseating, it’s contributing to a deterioration of language. Furthermore, Gamergate, the misogynistic movement to harass women that criticize video games, wouldn’t have a name if it weren’t for Watergate, and arguably, wouldn’t exist. Does that mean that Woodward and Bernstein, and in turn, the Washington Post, are responsible for the harassment these women are facing? Yes. Yes it does. Tim Herrera is also responsible, by association.

So is it any wonder that a publication with such a guilty conscious would come after the Log? Not to me. Not to a millennial writer and a journalistic hero like myself – it’s clearly their modus operandi. The only question left is whether or not the Washington Post is capable of the incisive level of self-awareness that Thought Catalog is capable of. Will they see that their futile attempts to deride and mock Thought Catalog stem not from valid criticism, but sheer jealousy? Or will they, in their abject arrogance and media elitism, refuse to accept that the Log is the future of all thought and discourse? I could spend time debating that, but I’ve got 14 things to do before I turn 30, and continuing to own the Washington Post isn’t on that list.