Jess and Josh Talk About Stuff

I received a comment on an NYU Local piece I wrote. Here is what he said:

It took me a long time to decide whether or not I should comment, but I finally decided that I needed to. (Hard decision because I have mad love for Josh.) That said…

This post is mean-spirited and unproductive, to put it plainly. All it does is take a poor freshman’s writing out of context for the sole purpose of exploiting and mocking it.

If you read Shelby Layne’s piece in its entirety, you’ll notice that it’s a harmless–if at times clumsy–attempt to earnestly describe the new city she lives in.

This is why “journalism is dying?” No. (Journalism is dying because print classified and advertising revenue went the way of Craigslist and Internet, along with the fact that print publications can’t compete with the Internet’s $0 overhead. It has nothing to do with freshmen journalism students trying to find their voice.)

This type of post doesn’t advance journalism in any way whatsoever. All it does is discourage people from sharing their work online, which is exactly the wrong incentive to promote.

Anyone who’s been the target of Internet bullying knows how unhelpful posts like these are, and anyone who hasn’t been torn apart online should find someone who has been. Legitimate critique is necessary, but going through a freshman’s writing line-by-line for quotes to sneer at is, as I’ve said, unproductive and hurtful.

I agree that making fun of Columbia’s journalism outputs isn’t necessarily “productive.” But not every post can be a listicle or an expose on university malpractices or a series of helpful tips on navigating the city. Sometimes, things deserve to be made fun of.

Now this may sound defensive, but, in fairness, I feel the need to defend myself here. I was not “Internet bullying.” That’s when you pick on someone, unprovoked, for the sole purpose of humiliating that person. While I think Shelby wrote a stupid article, this wasn’t an attack against her, since I don’t really know her outside of the stupid things she said in her stupid, presumptuous, meaningless opinion piece. So I guess it was kind of against her, since I was mocking her opinions, but I’m sure she’s a nice girl besides.

But yeah, sorry Charlie, this wasn’t Internet bullying. Guess what? When you post something online, you open yourself up for commentary. Some of that will be praise, and some of it will be ridicule. It’s why I can write an NYU Local post on the passage of Prop 8 and get called a fag. If you post something online—especially something that exposes your opinion—you have to be ready for critique. And when you post an opinion piece that instructs others how to think or behave, you better fucking be prepared for disagreement. If you’re not, then don’t post it in the first place.

And, um, I never said I was trying to “advance journalism.” NYU Local is a student blog. I write posts about creative date ideas; I’m not exactly angling for a Pulitzer. The Spectator, on the other hand, is a newspaper. Sure, Shelby wrote an opinion piece, but it’s still a different kind of op-ed than one that might appear in a blog. I wouldn’t have posted my critique in the Washington Square News. In an age when newspapers and other forms of s0-called “traditional journalism” are being deemed irrelevant and obsolete by blog-consuming Internet users, yes, posting an insipid piece in a newspaper is emblematic of some of the reasons why “journalism is dying.”

And I don’t think I was taking Shelby’s writing out of context. And I think it’s nice how the commenter in question slipped in a tiny criticism of his own while chiding me for, um, doing the same.

I admit I’m harsh with my making-fun-of-Columbia posts, but frankly, I don’t give a fuck. If I think you deserve to be made fun of because you publicly expressed opinions that reveal you to be (or at least seem) elitist, arrogant, or just plain stupid, then I’m going to make fun of you. I encourage others to do the same with any of my posts they hate.

-Josh “If you can’t stand the heat then get out of the Internet” Becker