Cancel culture, of course, has been
a big topic of discussion, and
ever so often it doesn't actually
work out in the way people plan.
Alexi McCammond, the newly named
editor in chief for Teen Vogue is
getting a lot of backlash from
the magazine staffers after her
deleted tweets from ten years ago
came back up for discussion.
Now, these are tweets that
she apologized for two years ago.
And it's also important to note
that, at the time that she put
these tweets out, she was a very,
very mature 17 years old.
[LAUGH] So let me give you
the details.
The source of these staffers'
concerns involve her relative lack
of experience compared to some
current staffers.
As well as some deleted tweets from
2011 when Alexi McCammond was 17 or
18 years old and in college,
where McCammond mocked Asians and
casually used gay.
And I'm afraid to even say this
word because I feel like,
if I do say it, it's going to come
back to haunt me but, gay and
homo insults, okay?
So I'm going to give you a few
examples of
the tweets that got her in trouble.
And again, these have been deleted.
She had already addressed these
two years ago.
She apologized.
She apologized again after
the staffers put out a letter
about their concerns.
She had previously written,
why is this newsworthy?
It's not.
And she was RT a Chicago Tribune
story about Major League Baseball
umpire Dale Scott revealing that
he's gay.
Now, this is in 2011.
And, at that point in our nation's
history, I think it was still news.
But I remember, at one point,
every time someone was reported as
being gay, I was just like,
can we normalize this already?
Let's stop treating it as if it's
this odd, rare thing that
we need to publicize and
make a big deal about.
They're gay, awesome, great, right?
So I remember having similar
commentary.
I personally do
not find that comment offensive.
Here's another one.
I thought you were,
she's quoting someone here.
I thought you were a Lakers fan,
you bandwagoning homo.
And Robert Swanson,
I'm guessing from Parks and Rec?
No, that's, no, Ron Swanson,
that's someone else.
My bad, ignore that.
[LAUGH] >> No, this is
an actual person.
>> Yeah, this is why you gotta love
live TV, Ana.
[LAUGH] >> Right,
Brett looks horrified.
And then here's another example.
Was, they went into her responses
to find this, hahaha you're so
gay lmao, that was one other thing.
So she got in trouble for
this, okay?
And there were calls for
her to get fired.
Luckily, Conde Nast was like, nah,
we're not going to fire her.
I think that's the right response.
But I just think this whole story
is crazy.
I don't know, what do you think?
>> It's so many things that bother
me about this.
One, the first thing that I want
people to understand is stop
advocating for people to get fired.
When you create an atmosphere where
the bosses can fire you for
anything, just because it's
something that you may like now.
Or your little freaking feelings
may be like, I want to see this
person lose their job right now.
You may like it right now, but
you're setting up a precedent so
that, one day, the bosses,
they can come up with some stuff
that they could decide.
And you're not going to like
it so much.
This idea that people should lose
their jobs.
I'm somebody of the mindset that
it should take something extremely
egregious for somebody to lose
their livelihood, lose their way to
pay their rent, to feed themselves,
to put food on the table.
It should be something very,
very horrible.
That's a one.
Two, again, not only was it the age
of the person, because I think it's
twofold with the Twitter thing and
social media stuff.
One, it's two-fold.
The age should matter.
17 years old, it's like,
we gotta cut 17-year-olds some
freaking slack at this point.
Specifically 10,
11 years after the fact.
And two, the medium.
In 2011, people were using Twitter
not as if it was this permanent
record that could at any point in
your freaking life,
no matter how much you've evolved,
or learned, or anything like that,
be used against you to sort of
desecrate your character.
Nobody was using it that way in
2011.
People were kind of just using
it as a personal diary.
We were barely posting our meals at
brunch back in 2011, okay?
This whole sort of self-conscious
way that we market ourselves,
or we glamorize our lives, and
we only show our most
perfect versions of ourselves on
social is a fairly new phenomenon.
And people weren't doing that back
in 2011.
Yes, the things she said were
messed up, or problematic, or
whatever one of these freaking
liberal buzzwords you want to use,
but does it rise to the level
of losing your job?
That is insane.
And lastly, and I think the main
problem with this line of thinking
of making Twitter so important is
that people foolishly and
stupidly delude themselves into
thinking they can actually get
things done via Twitter.
Conversely, they think like,
Twitter is so big,
we can change the world with this.
No, you can just get freaking
people fired, that's it.
That's it, you're not actually
adding any benefit to nobody's
lives via Twitter.
It's just Is so freaking tiring,
man.
>> Right, and
we're also in this pretty awful
no-win situation where,
as workers, you're encouraged
to provide free labor for
these platforms like Twitter.
Think about how they make money.
They make money off of selling
your data,
that's the whole business model.
Same with Facebook.
And so you're not only encouraged,
it's mandatory, especially if
you're out there looking for a job,
to have a presence on social media
that's impressive.
You have to have a good following.
That's where you show how talented
you are, how skilled you are.
I mean, you're forced to engage, in
constant, daily marketing, right?
In order to be able to work, to be
in any way attractive to employers.
And then, if you happen to tweet in
a way that's in that moment in
time acceptable, right?
In that moment in time acceptable,
and then the standards change ten
years later.
Well, then those tweets that you
were pressured to put out there, in
many cases, come back to haunt you.
That stuff happens all the time,
all the time.
And it's so incredibly,
if it were up to me, no Twitter,
no Twitter, it's gone.
It's banned, it's over, right?
Because it's created, and
I'm going to say something
that these Teen Vogue staffers
might not like, but I don't care.
They're not actually offended by
her comments from 10, 11 years ago,
they're not.
They're jealous,
because the first thing that they
mentioned is that she doesn't have
as much experience.
[LAUGH] >> Sounds like
you want her job.
Sounds like you're super salty
about the fact that she was named
editor in chief.
And then you guys went out there,
like little wannabe detectives,
to find or
dig up any dirt you could find.
And then make a big deal about it
and try to get her fired.
That's disgusting behavior.
And to be quite honest with you,
I would love to do some opposition
research on them.
What have you guys tweeted in 2011?
Because we've all tweeted things,
and we've all said things that
are not representative of who
we are today.
And the way that we treat people
today, honestly, serves as
a disincentive to evolve, right?
Because if you do evolve,
if you are a better person,
that doesn't count for anything.
Because you said something really
bad, or stupid when you were
a 17-year-old in college, and
it happens to be on Twitter.
So that's it, you're marked for
life, scarlet letter.
You're the worst
person in the world.
You don't deserve to be able to
provide for yourself and
your family.
It's just stupid, it's stupid.
>> Please don't audit my tweets
from 2010, guys.
It wasn't a pretty sight, though.
Don't do it. No, but
seriously, Ana, I think part of
why I'm annoyed by a lot of this
discourse from younger people about
microaggressions and all this other
made up crap is that I'm black.
[LAUGH] And so
I say that in the sense that I've
been followed in stores,
I've seen women clutch their purse.
I've seen people cross the street,
I've heard people say that black
people have an extra calf muscle in
their leg.
And so that's why we're
always killing people in track and
field and basketball.
I've heard, I've experienced so
many of these things that certain
people would have you believe you
should have me on a fainting couch.
That I shouldn't be able to get out
of bed every day.
And there are people,
black people who I know, who have
experienced similar things.
And not to say that we shouldn't
get people to stop doing that, but
this idea that it rises to
the level of assault, or trauma, or
PTSD, or
any of this crap is nonsense.
It's ridiculous.
And if anybody read what she
tweeted and really feels like this
is the end of the world,
then I'm sorry, man,
you're not built for this world.
[LAUGH] I'm sorry that's to get off
my lawn take, but I'm tired of it.
It's ridiculous.
>> Yeah, well, Conde Nast is going
to stand by her.
They write in a statement that
McCammond was appointed editor in
chief because of the values,
inclusivity and depth that she has
deployed throughout her journalism.
And also throughout her career,
she's dedicated herself to
being blah, blah, blah.
You guys get the point.
They don't even need to put all
that out there.
They're standing by her.
I think that's the right
thing to do.
If we're going to demonize and
brutalize each other over what we
did or said when we were
in college, I just think that this
country is in for a lot more pain
than it needs to be.
So I'm glad that Conde Nast made
the decision that they did.