Writer Taylor Lorenz is laughing off Right wing media takedown attempts, saying they’ve turned her into a “character,” but admits the attention isn’t all that bad.
Lorenz, who came under fire back in April for revealing the identity of the Libs of TikTok creator, is no stranger to controversy.
On Wednesday, she was a guest on The Town with Matthew Belloni, in which she discussed her career, controversy, and the state of the tech world.
“Why do you get death threats? Why do people come after you? What is it about the, the beat that you cover?” Belloni asked.
“I know, I feel like normal people are always like, ‘Why are you so controversial?’ I just have to remind them, first of all, I’ve covered this beat for over a decade. I’m probably the most prominent person on this beat, for better or worse,” Lorenz replied.
“You have to remember that every single person I write about has an audience themselves. I’m not, you know, out there just writing about companies or things, you know, sometimes like corporate coverage or even sports players or people that even have PR departments. If I write about some YouTuber, they’re gonna, you know, PewDiePie’s gonna make a video about me,” she added.
“There’s this whole internet ecosystem that exists that the mainstream media pretty much ignores that I very much operate in. And I think most journalists don’t operate in that world… I think because that, people see my name trending or whatever, obviously the Right wing media has kind of made me into a character,” Lorenz said.
“Yeah. Why do they care about you?” Belloni asked.
“Because I write about online influence, Matt — and these people want, I mean, that is their whole goal,” Lorenz replied. “You have to think of how online influence is reshaping politics. Look at something like Libs of TikTok, right? It’s the influencer account. And so I think a lot of times my beat touches on politics in a way–”
As Belloni inquired about coverage surrounding her stories, Lorenz explained that the attention isn’t all that bad.
“You know what, Matt, I will say, look, we live in an attention economy. I’m not gonna act like this attention has been a hundred percent harmful. I’ve definitely struggled to navigate some of the, like, death threats and swatting and stuff,” she said.
“You’ve been swatted?” Belloni said in shock.
“Oh, God. Yeah. My whole family, almost everyone in my family has been swatted,” Lorenz laughed. “You know, it gives me a really great insight into what these content creators deal with. Because you know, this is something that Twitch streamers deal with. There is big story in the New York Times recently about this.”
“Like, I think that kind of operating in this world and dealing with a lot of things that even like a B list YouTuber deals with — it’s kind of, I don’t know. I think it’s helped me and it’s helped my reporting and it’s certainly helped influencers that have dealt with that stuff trust me more. Cause they know that I get it,” she concluded.
Listen above via The Town with Matthew Belloni.
