Content Cop - Taylor Lorenz (Midwest Edition)

I'm here in New York City, the concrete jungle, home of literary lions, Wall Street bears, and reptilian reporters. But today, our focus is on one particular viper who sits at the highest steps of journalism—that is, the New York Times building. And inside is a reporter who will suffocate your career like silent halon gas. They are a cobra of carnage. They are the worst reporter working in media, and I think it's time someone spoke out on their lies. Let's begin. [Music]

That journalist is Taylor Lorenz. For those not familiar, she is a tech reporter for the New York Times, frequently featured on the front page and read by millions of people who trust her opinion on millennials and Gen Z. But should they? Because Taylor has quickly become one of the most toxic, deceitful reporters working in American journalism, and it's time someone blew the lid off this. On YouTube, she has a pattern of bullying, deception, targeted intimidation, and lies. And for YouTube, who's watching this video very carefully, this is not creator intimidation; this is legitimate professional criticism by a peer.

Here's me doing a story with Allie Watkins, so this is Allie Watkins, a reporter for BuzzFeed News, and I first became interested in this story. Now, the New York Times. Here's me doing a story with Charlie Roselle. So, once everything healed, I decided that I needed to start. Now, at the New York Times. Here's me doing an investigative piece on academic fraud with Yahoo News. This will be a professional video. Look, this is Brooks Brothers here in New York. We try to elevate our discourse, so today we're going to document how Taylor attacks women, how, in my opinion, she manipulates teenagers with their power imbalance, and what makes her reporting so toxic to the YouTube community that it's time creators, influencers, and YouTube stop taking her press seriously.

See, Taylor Lorenz's reporting is like a fractal. In isolation, it appears chaotic and random, but the closer we look—in this video—the more a recurring pattern will reveal itself. A pattern that shows this reporter is a clout chaser and a liar. In order to establish this reporter chases clout, we must first use one of Mrs. Lorenz's own tricks and go back in time. A few weeks ago, Taylor Lorenz put out a fishing line for any dirt on MrBeast. She tweeted from her account of a quarter million followers, looking to speak to some of the world's biggest MrBeast fans—people who know everything about his content and have followed his every move. Is that you? And I know not everybody spends their life on YouTube, so for people with real jobs, MrBeast is one of the most family-friendly creators on YouTube. His real name is Jimmy; he's a young guy who lives in North Carolina and is known for giving away money to working-class and service workers. He famously gave away lots of money to delivery drivers. That's all right. That's right. Since you downloaded it, it's a good tip. Appreciate it. But as a person with a media-trained eye, I can tell you this tweet is no friendly fishing expedition. She's like Captain Ahab, aiming to harpoon MrBeast like a giant viral whale. Which, if she's a normal reporter, fine. But this reporter is more like a Soviet scientist who starts with the conclusion she wants and then searches backward for any evidence she can use to fit that conclusion, even if it doesn't quite want to fit.

And indeed, I was correct. My power is a prediction accurate because while I was working on this video, Taylor published this hit piece on MrBeast, with all the accuracy of Soviet Lysenkoist farming. The story is roughly about Jimmy's idolization of Elon Musk, but also how Jimmy has a toxic work environment and allegedly degrades some of his employees—at least according to Taylor and her subjects, Matt Turner and Nate Anderson. Now, all stories are like houses; each narrative has a set of evidence that act as load-bearing walls that support the rest of the story. But Taylor is the cheapest contractor on planet Earth. The evidence, her load-bearing walls—well, her main subject, Nat Turner, has a history of contradicting himself, writing on Twitter, "It was the most mentally degrading time of my life," and saying in Taylor's article, "MrBeast used to degrade him every day and leave him in tears," and then makes a video praising MrBeast: "If you, if you have the opportunity to get this job that I had, um, totally take it. It's a lot of fun. It's basically just like a friendship, and going to work was a blast each and every day. MrBeast, I love you, bro." Magically, that video did not make it into her article. Her second load-bearing wall for this article is MrBeast's history of problematic slurs, or as she writes, "His early videos and posts were criticized for their use of slurs and offensive jokes." The person who criticized MrBeast for his slurs and offensive jokes was Taylor Lorenz. I know this because this is not the first time Taylor has workshopped a hit piece on MrBeast. She's been trying to nail him for years. It's 2018, and MrBeast is searing to the top of YouTube like a SpaceX rocket. Taylor publishes this article: "MrBeast has a history of homophobic comments"—extraordinary headline. You may have even seen it. Judge MrBeast for it. But if we peer past the headline, her entire article is held up by three tweets. Three tweets are her evidence for his history of homophobic comments, and the tweets are—I will read the examples—in 2015, he tweeted, "Windows is gay, I guess," in regards to his computer. In 2016, he tweeted, "I don't have a printer." And in 2017, he tweeted, "STFU." That's it. It's almost like this reporter wanted a provocative story on a big YouTuber, like here's her fishing line on Jake Paul, but all she could find were three tweets from his teenage years, so made a story around that rather than let go and acknowledging there's no story and MrBeast is not a homophobe. She wove those three tweets together like she's Joseph making a dream. Call me generous, but three tweets is not a panel; it's nothing except for Taylor.

The first thing we should know about this reporter: it's one of her reporting tactics to mine newly famous people's Twitter accounts, searching for anything negative they've ever written. I call it the Twitter trap. The Twitter trap: the act of rifling through years of a person's tweets to assign negative meaning to someone's character. Select tweets are used to establish a pattern while omitting context or time elapsed between them. Can usually be done against anyone—a common tool of low-brow journalism—scientific term: cherry-picking or p-hacking. Taylor knows the Twitter trap well; it's why she auto-deletes all of her tweets every 90 days. She deletes them all and has for years. This New York Times reporter is too cowardly to stand by anything she tweets, but she has no problem mining a decade's worth of other people's tweets and assigning meaning to them that helps her make a viral story. And if the article she writes isn't enough to sink them the first time, so circle around and try it again a second time, even that requires citing a subject who contradicts himself: "MrBeast, I love you, bro." In her own flimsy prior historic work: "Windows is gay." Now, Taylor will say—because I'm no fool—that her reporting is made up of 11 people. Quick edit in for evidence. I know Taylor will argue this because I have all of her Discord messages. Told you I had receipts. These particular tale of Discord messages came right after YouTuber Philip DeFranco had made a video also pointing out Matt Turner's video praising MrBeast and wondering aloud if Taylor was being entirely honest in her story. But also, now we're seeing a lot of pushback on social media against the claims in the Times article. That's because of a now-deleted video from Turner, who, of course, is one of the main accusers in this article. Taylor was not happy with Philip DeFranco and started writing on Discord. She writes, "I spoke to 11 former employees, some very senior and close with MrBeast and people who worked with him, so this is not like one person." But Taylor doesn't state whether those 11 former employees agree with the assertions in her article and what Turner, her main subject, says. Speaking of Turner, Turner posted that nice video about MrBeast basically under duress. It's something I interviewed him about and talked to him about at length. Phil would know that if he did research or simply even ask me. So Taylor was aware that Turner had made a positive video praising MrBeast, interviewed him, spoke to him at length about it, and then chose to omit that fact in her article. And when it is pointed out that Turner, her main subject, has a video contradicting himself, praising MrBeast, she argues that, well, he made it under duress, even though I admitted the fact that I didn't include the video nor the fact that he allegedly did it under duress with no evidence cited for that. We would all know this, including Philip—Philip DeFranco—if we had simply had the presence of mind to reach out to this New York Times reporter directly to ask her for the full context of the story because she left out half of it. Now, I won't read too much more of this; I think people have a right to trash-talk on Discord, but I will include a few quotes. Philip DeFranco, if you're wondering how Taylor talks about you behind your back, she writes, "This is gross of Phil and shows how these big rich creators don't want any accountability." She's referring to the video you made. It further emphasizes how these big creators have never and will never hold their peers accountable. I guess the case doesn't factor into her opinion. Many of these big YouTubers also boosted Dobre for years and Jake Paul even before that. It's really frustrating and maddening coming from Philip DeFranco, who postures as a journalist and even takes journalism grants for his channel. Okay, I'm in a Twitter world with PhillyDeep now lol. I hope you guys give Phil a piece of your mind. It's super gross to see him act like this and push right-wing anti-mainstream media rhetoric. Well, Phil DeFranco, your actions are gross; you're pushing anti-right-wing mainstream media rhetoric, and she'd like her fans to give you a piece of their mind. Now, I realize you two, Philip DeFranco and Taylor, made nice in the DMs. I know this because I had the Discord messages, but I thought it might be fascinating, Phil Franco or Philip DeFranco's audience or this audience to understand how Taylor talks about people behind their back. Also interesting to note: Taylor employs the tactic of seeking her fans on someone when they say something she dislikes—a tactic that is widely viewed as gross and harassment when done by influencers in the YouTube community. I won't air anymore Discord messages; that's enough of this.

I tell you this MrBeast story because it sets the tenor of her reporting: negative and manipulative. It establishes this New York Times reporter will seek to find a pattern where none exists, will assume the most negative intent from an ambiguous situation—"Windows is gay"—and runs stories where her main subject contradicts her own thesis: "MrBeast, I love you, bro." But most importantly, she will disregard the journalism principle minimizing harm. Taylor Lorenz doesn't care whom she harms on her quest for virality, and we're just getting started.

The same year MrBeast was labeled a homophobe, two entrepreneurial women, Jackie and Claudia Oshry, were growing the Instagram account Girl With No Job. It was their livelihood, and if you're a female millennial, you may even be wondering, "Oh yeah, what did happen to Girl With No Job?" Taylor Lorenz is what happened to Girl With No Job. Taylor Lorenz boxed for views. For some reason, Taylor Lorenz's clown radar locked on to Jackie and Claudia Oshry. I'm not sure why, and neither is Claudia. Perhaps it has something to do with them being young, successful, entrepreneurial women. Taylor seems to have a pattern of attacking them, but more on that later. Like MrBeast, this reporter saw an opportunity to cash in on Girl With No Job's virality. She began digging into the private lives of these young girls. It's so much easier when your victims—I mean, subjects—are young, am I right? Did she find Claudia or Jackie breaking the law? No. Did she find Claudia or Jackie doing anything morally wrong? No. However, as usual, this reporter did discover some mean tweets they wrote as teenagers—Taylor again using the Twitter trap, despite deleting her own tweets. But even more juicy, she learned the name of Claudia and Jackie's mom, Pamela Geller, and Pamela Geller was a Trump supporter and an Islamophobe. Taylor found out who Claudia's mom was and then used Claudia's mom's name and history as a weapon against her to build a negative viral story around her. And that story was to expose—boxed—their mother-daughter relationship to the entire world, publishing the article, "Instagram stars hiding their famous Muslim-hating mom, Pamela Geller." The story immediately broke waves the size of the San Andreas fault. It's a scoop, yes, but one we should all feel gross about because Taylor publicly boxing Claudia's mom forces a situation where the daughters must respond by one: either publicly disowning their mom in order to save their Instagram account and brand, or two: choose not to publicly disown their own mom but create the perception that they now tacitly approve of their mom's kooky beliefs. Taylor knows this and sticks the metaphorical knife in them, writing, "None of the girls have spoken out or denounced their mother's extremist views." In fact, the daughters had gone to great lengths to conceal their connection to their mother; family photos including their mother had been stripped from their Instagrams. Like the MrBeast article, this story reads like the reporter wanted a negative story on Claudia and then sought out anything they could use as evidence to push her in a bad light—in this case, her mom—a story exposing the sins of someone's parents but not them, telegraphs a desire for clicks and hurt for these women. And this article hurt Claudia badly. Verizon Media canceled her show; her agent dropped her; her management dropped her; partnerships dropped her; her career was effectively over. But worse, this reporter's story possibly recklessly put Claudia and her sisters in danger. Six months prior to Taylor publicly exposing Claudia and Jackie as Pamela Geller's kids, the FBI had caught an Al-Qaeda supporter plotting to murder Pamela Geller. Someone was actively trying to kill—was actively trying to murder Pamela Geller—when Taylor publicly went, "Oh, hey, by the way, those are her kids," to the world. Perhaps the daughters, as public figures, had a legitimate safety reason for hiding their relationship with their mom from the public beyond just their brand deals; they didn't want to get killed. So Taylor went after MrBeast for a few problematic tweets and went after Claudia and Jackie for a problematic mother, which is funny because Taylor knows all about problematic takes. In 2017, Taylor was at the Charlottesville rally and reported that the hate-filled driver who mowed into a group of people and murdered a person did it, essentially, according to her, on accident, tweeting after she spoke to the police: "Anyway, several police officers here at the station think the guy running people down wasn't malicious; they said the driver was scared." Thank you for that, Taylor. Now, I know Taylor tried to delete these tweets, but she dug up MrBeast's tweets, so I'll dig up hers. She goes on to say that the counter-protesters, or as the media would later deem non-violent protesters, were—quote, according to her—"The car is being swarmed by protesters, some of them who are getting violent. The police say the car was covered in dense and apparently hit by a bat; they're throwing rocks, bottles, and shoes." But when her reporting and these tweets later did not fit the dominant narrative, she deleted her problematic reporting, tried to scrub it off the internet. She deleted these tweets and pretended like she never made a big mistake—or was it a mistake? Given what she recorded, wrote, and then deleted, either she was an incorrect witness, misreported what she saw, then deleted her problematic reporting and tried to pretend like she never said anything else, or she tweeted a narrative of events, and when that narrative of events contradicted the prevailing narrative enough, she wanted to be on the correct side of history and decided she would just try to scrub her problematic reporting, erase it, and quietly go with the new narrative and act like she never said anything differently. Which, as we know, this lack of accountability and waffling on what is the true story is the kind of journalistic ethics we would expect from the prestigious New York Times. But the larger question is: why did this reporter editorialize her own narrative on top of the footage she was already filming for The Hill? Like her tweets, I found her livestream, and the video reporting is fine; the video captures accurately what occurred, but then she tweeted that protesters violently swarmed the car, throwing rocks, bottles, and shoes, only to magically delete those tweets and claim she was live-streaming to over 3 million people when that's false. Anyone can check; the actual number is 1.3 million, which seems like a small lie, but Taylor lies everywhere; that's what I'm getting at. It's easier to catch Taylor—this New York Times reporter—lie than a T-ball tossed by a toddler. So along with her lack of accountability and waffling on stories or numbers, the digging up of other people's tweets, the doxing of people's moms, I'm starting to get the vibe that maybe this reporter is a bad actor and has a problem telling the truth. [Laughter]

In the past two months, Taylor has at least twice publicly lied about Netscape founder Marc Andreessen—two big factual heirs for a New York Times reporter—but she lies over really small things too, which, in my opinion, destroys her credibility when covering big subjects. Here is an example that distills the banality of this reporter's dishonesty, and one she cannot wriggle out of. After getting hired by the New York Times, this reporter subtweeted a colleague, a female writer named Zeynep. For those unfamiliar, Zeynep is one of the most well-respected writers by readers and experts alike. She was way ahead in the cove data—thoughtful, switchblade, smart. Seriously, also like Claudia, is a successful woman, so what's the story here? Okay, Zeynep, two years earlier, had called our reporter unqualified to report on social media, and Taylor never forgot it. 2017: Zeynep had wrote, "Her responses to Trustee were condescending, ignorant, and rude. She deleted them so you can't see how out of line she was to someone who was politely commenting. Trustee is brilliant, and Taylor's other rudeness was just unacceptable. I'm surprised the journalist is surprised to me; that's a sign she's unqualified to report on the attention economy." 2017. Two years later, Taylor Lorenz begins subtweeting her. But a New York Post reporter named Jon Levine recognizes Taylor chirping at Zeynep and calls it out. And what follows, the most mind-numbing spat we can imagine—mind-numbing but important because it reveals Taylor's dishonesty over even the most trivial subjects. Our New York Post reporter calls out Taylor Lorenz chirping at Zeynep on Twitter, feels it, and then blocks the New York Post reporter on Twitter. The New York Post reporter screenshots he's just been blocked by Taylor and tweets out the irony. But then Taylor unblocks him and tweets, "You're literally not blocked. Stop trying to make things up. It's so desperate, law," and then adds to her followers, "This guy literally photoshopped being blocked by me to try to get clown l-o-l-l-l-l—like, how desperate you gotta be?" Which, ouch. Therefore, the New York Post reporter now has to respond and defend his credibility and tweets, "Taylor Lorenz is accusing me of photoshopping this, which is a lie. She is a reporter for the New York Times." Okay, so this problem is simple and binary: either the New York Post reporter is lying or the New York Times reporter is lying. One of these reporters is lying, but which one is it? I spoke to someone on background who worked with both Taylor and Jon at Mic, and they can confirm the New York Post reporter did not photoshop anything. And I was able to locate Taylor's DMs to Jon, which show Taylor literally DM'd Jon right after he said he had not photoshopped anything and said, "Do I need to block you again?" in all caps, thus confirming she had indeed blocked him and was lying about the entire thing the whole time. And then when Jon doesn't take down that he's not photoshopping anything, the messages become bizarre. She starts harassing him and acting on behind the scenes. Four hours later: "Thank you for the help. I appreciate it. Smiley face." Five minutes later: "Could you retweet this one too, please? Thank you. Really appreciate it. Prayer hand. Prayer ham. Prayer." And it's sarcasm. And then finally, when he still has not responded at 8:03: "So funny you can't tell what's a joke alol I'm dying." No, she got caught lying. After publicly lying about another reporter, she then taunts that reporter about her lies and DMs him unsolicited sarcastic messages. This reporter is willing to call another reporter a liar and knowingly lie to her own audience to try and win an argument. This small but instructive conversation was difficult to pin down because, again, Taylor deletes all evidence of her tweets. Tweet deleted.

Tweet deleted. Tweet deleted. Tweet deleted. But then I found a female software developer named Mason Hartman who shared an eerily similar experience with Taylor. Writing at one point, she even falsely claimed that I had photoshopped a screenshot that I had taken of a man making a fairly horrifying comment about me. Once she realized that several other people had seen the tweet I had screen-capped, she deleted the accusation and disappeared.

When it's a woman she dislikes who's receiving nasty comments online, her first impulse is to claim, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, that woman is lying. She's too often the perp or enabler. So the fact that we can confirm Taylor has lied twice in the exact same pattern and then deleted her tweets to try to erase the evidence—I mean, she likely does this frequently. This reporter is willing to call another reporter a liar and knowingly lie to her own audience. And when caught—like her inability to acknowledge she was lying—should be worrisome to any reasonable reader. What else is she willing to lie about?

Personal anecdote: But when I was trying to confirm a few details on this, I had an editor call my phone number, which was not public, asking why I wanted to know. People are literally scared of calling out Taylor; they don't want to lose their jobs because she calls people's bosses.

To close out this chapter, I'll share what Zineb wrote in response to Taylor: "I don't care about being subtweeted; no need to tag me obviously, but just for the record, I'm not a journalist as per your subtweet, and neither is Tressy, and we like our facts." Here's what had prompted my reply to you: "You had completely missed her as usual. Super smart point," Zineb, September 24th, 2019. So Zineb was defending a woman while Taylor, again, was attacking another one. [Laughter]

Younger viewers may remember, during the last year of the Trump administration, Kellyanne Conway's 15-year-old daughter, Claudia, making eye-popping TikTok videos about her family. These videos were frequently intense, dramatic, and unsettling. "I have people supporting me right now. Don't touch my phone. My live stream, you need to turn it off right now. Then we'll get back to it. I guess you can get back to it. Turn it off. Hi. Turn it off now, baby. No, I'm not okay. Thanks, guys, though. Before you get it all over the sheets that I cleaned, can you stop? No, you don't ignore me [___]." I text them all day long, and they're paying attention to you because they know. And these videos would frequently go viral. The initial viral boost behind Claudia's videos? New York Times reporter Taylor Lorenz, who was sharing these videos with her 200,000 Twitter audience, saying, "Claudia is not holding back." Now, of course, Taylor has deleted her promotional tweets in an attempt to hide that she ever did this. It's predictable, but I found Bustle's reporting, Slate magazine's reporting, Business Insider's reporting, Washington Examiner—quote: "In June, Claudia had about 31,000 followers. After Taylor boosted her celebrity to hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers, Claudia's own TikTok following skyrocketed to nearly 650,000 followers." So we know Taylor was boosting Claudia, even if, ever since, she's tried to hide it.

Interpersonal family problems are rarely solved in front of the public, particularly when you have a New York Times reporter promoting the drama for sport. Indeed, people criticize this adult New York Times reporter for sharing 15-year-old Claudia's videos. And Taylor's response? Taylor argued that she had done nothing wrong because she and Claudia were "mutuals," and that Claudia "literally talked to her" about getting more followers. So a New York Times reporter is just graciously helping teenagers get more followers on TikTok? Or is it more likely that the favor of promotion by a New York Times reporter will be used as leverage to extract information from teenagers if they become valuable as sources, like Claudia? I think the term is power imbalance. Taylor Lorenz creates a power imbalance. But even when 15-year-old Claudia's dad, George, pleaded with the media to desist from contact with his daughter, Taylor continued. George: "Two journalists, Kelly and I, do not consent to any communications between you and our minor children, including our daughter Claudia, so desist." Even after that, Taylor continued to amplify his daughter's posts. Why? Because establishing a "mutual"—and she calls it a relationship—with 15-year-old Claudia is not an anomalous event; it seems to be Taylor's MO. Like when she established contact with 15- or 16-year-old AJ Mitchell in 2017 so she could use him as a source when he turned 18 in her article, "Jake Paul Promised Them Fame—Was It Worth the Price?" Or 17-year-olds who were given quotes in one article and then felt pressured to say something negative about another person in the second article. You see, this New York Times reporter likes to talk about TikTok. TikTok is a hot topic, and a lot of TikTokers happen to be very young people. Now, does this New York Times reporter approach reporting on young people with the thoughtfulness and grace we've come to expect from her? No.

Taylor told Digiday that the parents of the teens she talks with for her stories "often aren't fully aware" that she's in touch with them. Allow me to quote the article: "The biggest, most challenging thing about my job is getting teenagers to talk to them on my phone or having them let me into their house. A lot of kids don't want anything to do with it, especially if their parents aren't fully aware of what they're doing. As a formality, do you mind if I tape on my end? I'm not gonna name you; I'll keep you anonymous. It just, yeah, for sure. Would…were you like hopping on calls like these…were phone calls, right? You were talking with Taylor? Yeah. And and your mom was listening too, right? Or no? No. Oh, okay. So did Taylor ever reach out to your mom? No, she never reached out. She just went straight to you. Did that strike you as odd? Yeah. [Music] Oh, okay. So wait, one of your friends told you that, or one of them? Okay, so it was like, 'Hey, Taylor's working on an article; respond if she messages you.'" Their parents aren't fully aware of what they're doing. Luckily for Taylor, women have the advantage here. "I think it's much easier for me to slide into these people's DMs in a non-threatening way than from a male journalist in his 30s kind of DM'ing random teen girls. So I definitely use that to my advantage. I definitely use that to my advantage." She uses her gender and her well-developed social skills to establish connections with minors so she may mine them for material or as sources without their parental knowledge. "I don't really use email; my Instagram DMs is the first thing I check in the morning. I want them to feel casual enough that they could message me at any time." Here's a text of a 17-year-old TikToker saying they're scared of Taylor, which is not that unreasonable if you're a 17-year-old TikToker talking to a 36-year-old New York Times reporter who has the power to make or break your reputation for the foreseeable future. I think the term is power imbalance.

Okay, with the New York Times one, she was trying to convince her [Music] it's difficult [Music] Okay, she was not saying nice, and then it looked like, I guess I…I don't want to take up all, you know, your entire day. It just looked like Taylor talked and something like, you know, she was app[___] an agenda, and then they spoke really…say anything negatively and then make it into the article. Yeah. I mean, then she started going out…Oh, really? Yeah, I believe so. Like I…I don't think she was getting what she wanted; that's all I could think of, you know, right? And then so she started going after…Did she metaphorically? Metaphorically? Yeah. But I think any reasonable juror would conclude repeatedly using her power as a New York Times reporter and her age and skills to extract stories and drama from teenagers again and again so that she can materially benefit from her job is a form of unsavory objective. Again, I'm not the first person to raise eyebrows here. People criticized her in March for being a 36-year-old reporter who slides into the DMs of teenagers. Her response? First tweet: Her critics are full of "bad faith [___]," and then, of course, delete the tweet. So we have a reporter who rifles through other people's history looking for a negative narrative on them, deletes their own record of errors, doxes people's family members, misleads about the reach of the reporting and their quotes, and slides into the DMs of your teenage sons or daughters' Instagram account. I'm warning you: This reporter is on the brown as we speak. Add your kids, hides your wife and hatred because Taylor is damning him. [Music] She's doing well. All right. I know we're like 30 minutes in; it's getting long, but we need to keep going. There's still some evidence that requires us digging up. It's gonna get good. [Laughter] New location. I'm traveling, but video must go on.

In December 2019, Verge reporter Zoe Schiffer, and friend of Taylor Lorenz, published this incredibly interesting but terribly damaging article on the CEO of Away luggage. The reporting detailed an environment of alleged intimidation and surveillance of its employees by its female founder and CEO, Steph Corey. And when the story dropped—"Emotional Baggage: Former Away Employees Describe a Toxic Workplace"—this was immediately cheerlead by Taylor Lorenz. "I remember sitting at my office in Yahoo with a buddy watching the nuclear fallout in real time." Steph Corey resigned from Away; the board issued an exclusive interview to the Wall Street Journal, and Corey apologized in a desperate dash of PR to save her company's reputation. It was a big story. However, after a few months, Steph Corey had a change of heart. She felt the Verge article had been unfair, and her response—and overreaction—she talked to the board; she resumed her position as CEO at the company she founded, and she did an Instagram "Ask Me Anything." And one of her followers asked her why women were being targeted and who she thought was doing the targeting. And we can read Steph Corey's response. She spoke about how she thought journalism incentives had shifted and how this new economic model affects the reporting done by young reporters—a benign answer, particularly from someone who has just gone through the PR nightmare of an incredibly damaging story. I've linked it down below; you can decide for yourself whether you think it's a hip beater. Frankly, that's beside the point because when Steph Corey answers this Instagram question, who appears on the scene like Rita Skeeter ready to drown Hermione? But Taylor Lorenz, who tweets to her quarter-million followers: "Steph Corey, disgraced former CEO of Away Luggage's ranting and IG stories about the media. Her posts are incoherent, and it's disappointing to see a woman who ran a luggage brand perpetuate falsehoods about the industry she has zero understanding of." One, notice how Taylor makes it about gender. Two, I work in media; Steph's answer makes sense. But more importantly, we have a New York Times reporter who: one, randomly attacks a female CEO out of the blue; two, makes a factual error—Steph Corey is the current CEO of Away; three, violates New York Times social media guidelines. I don't care about that, but four—the one I do care about—is when she is called out for her verbal broadside into Steph Corey, Taylor plays victim and omits her own attack. Bellagie, a business contemporary of Steph, calls out Taylor for her random harassment and factual error. And rather than Taylor retract the statement or apologize, she doubles down and takes to her audience, writing that Bellagie "has been ranting about me by name for months now. He has tweeted speculation about my salary, bashed my education, my writing, my career, and worse. I've tried to reach out to him privately today; he declined my call once again. Honestly, how should I handle that?" That conveniently ignores Taylor started all this by being the one who randomly attacked Steph Corey. But Taylor continues on, writing, "Well, I've worked so hard to become a writer. I took a massive pay cut to lead the strategy side of things. I take my job seriously and it built a reputation as someone who is fair and pathetic and honest." I'm not sure that's her reputation; I think it's fear, if I'm being honest—total abject fear. It's part of what makes this video so difficult because I know multiple reporters of different genders who are scared of speaking out against Taylor Lorenz, even though they've had direct negative interactions with her, because they don't want to jeopardize their careers. And I know of multiple TikTokers and influencers that are equally scared of Taylor and worry that she may wield her power at the New York Times to obliterate their future careers. Her reputation is not empathetic; it is fear. What I can say is that people may be less likely to call her out if she took accountability for her own errors, but no, instead there's always a double down. This guy, Reuben, whom I don't know from Adam, but wrote, "I don't agree with everything Steph wrote, but how are her posts incoherent?" And Taylor responds as, "It's completely wrong and delusional." So not only is Steph Corey "disgraced former CEO," but she's also delusional. Taylor is simply gaslighting here to bury anyone who disagrees with her opinion on Steph Corey. It reminds me of the same way she lied about the New York Post reporter photoshopping her for clout or about the female software developer and how she claimed she was a liar when it was Taylor who is lying. Anyone who disagrees with Taylor is a liar or delusional, according to her, and I'm sure the same inverted pyramid of piffle will be spread about me. I don't know of any other reporter who behaves like this. But to pluck a cherry of irony up the tree of fate, to bookend this chapter, after Taylor going on about Bellagie—"Bellagie has been ranting about me…I've tried to reach out to him privately today; he declined my call once again"—they both happened to enter a Clubhouse chat room that same evening, and shortly after Bellagie joined, Taylor left. She had her opportunity to talk to Bellagie and settle their differences, but instead she bounced. So was the entire message she wrote to her audience—"I've reached out to him, and he won't respond to me"—nonsense? Yes. Actions express priorities, and her action when she left—Taylor tells her audience one thing and then does something entirely different in real life, again and again and again—and it becomes increasingly hard to take anything this reporter says seriously.

We have a New York Times reporter who rifles through people's history to find negative narratives on them, deletes her own record of errors, doxes people's family members, misleads about the reach of reporting, slides into the DMs of your teenage sons or daughters' Instagram account, and now has a troubling pattern of attacking successful women like Claudia and Jackie and Mason and Zineb and Steph Corey. And for the sake of argument, if anyone thinks I'm making up a pattern that does not exist in real life, I'm not. Let me read what Tai Haney, founder of Outdoor Voices, wrote: "It wasn't just me and Outdoor Voices. I have this pure group of women who became the faces of their companies around the same time: Emily Weiss from Glossier is a good friend; Audrey and Lauren from The Wing; Jen Rubio and Steph Corey from Away. We kind of came up together and did similar things in different industries, and over the past year, we have all been put on the chopping block at some point for some crazy reason. All of these were female journalists going after female founders. I don't yet know what to make of that; it's certainly been gendered, I think hugely." Steph Corey, "disgraced former CEO of Away Luggage's ranting on IG stories about the media. Her posts are incoherent." [Music] [Laughter] I needed to re-record this because the first time I was low energy. Taylor Lorenz's emotionally draining, but this chapter is important because in this chapter we dismantle Taylor's reporting.

In August 2020, Taylor published another damaging piece on a female businesswoman. The article was titled, "Making It Big Online: Getting Signed Isn't Everything," and the subject of this article was a woman named Arie Jacobs. On casual reading, this article is good; it paints a compelling picture of talent manager Ari Jacobs and her content houses manipulating teenagers, misleading them, stealing money from them on their quest for fame. That's the thing about Taylor: She is extremely good at writing convincing narratives. She's like an agent in the Matrix. To the untrained eye, you would never notice the deception, but once you've been inside for a few years, you're like, "Wait a minute." Upgrade upgrades indeed. Taylor is no longer combing through old Twitter accounts, so allow me to poke some holes in Taylor's reporting and blow up this…this story like there's 80 pounds of Tannerite inside it.

First issue: Taylor, the New York Times reporter, is reporting on R. Jacobs Management Agency while not disclosing Taylor herself is signed to a competing agency, UTA. UTA is a direct competitor to R. Jacobs Influences. Nor does Taylor disclose that a few months prior to this article, she had written a glowing article about UTA. And let me parry what the New York Times is going to say immediately because I know how this game is played: They're going to say Taylor was signed to UTA prior to joining the New York Times and therefore does not need to disclose this conflict of interest to her readers. Convenient, but okay. Taylor does not disclose that she and Ari Jacobs had a friendly relationship prior to Taylor stabbing her right in the back. Here's a text where Taylor is thanking Ari Jacobs and hoping she's staying safe during COVID. Taylor writes that Gary Vaynerchuk is not associated with Influences but fails to disclose that Gary Vaynerchuk has a very personal relationship with Ari Jacobs of Influences. Taylor fails to disclose these photos taken in the Girl in the Valley house. Those are interesting, huh? Taylor doesn't disclose that Tiana Singer, one of her subjects, has no management contract with Influences. Taylor doesn't disclose that the house in question—the Girls in the Valley house—was Bella Thorne's house. Now, why wouldn't Taylor disclose that? Is that maybe because Taylor wants to preserve her own relationship with Bella Thorne while happily trashing Ari Jacobs? I think it is. Now, part of Taylor's problems—and she has many—maybe because she didn't want to accept much on background. I know this because I have all of Taylor's emails. Taylor thinks she's the only person that can play this game. I know she moved to California with "Life is Easy," and she can interview children. Welcome to New York. I can see that Taylor gave R. Jacobs only 72 hours to respond to all these questions before publication and then only 20—take that back—only eight hours to respond to an entirely new set of questions prior to publication. Indeed, I can see that Taylor really wanted to nail Ari Jacobs because she was probing over missed rent payments, personal misrep payments from 2018, to which Ari's lawyer humorously responded, "I failed to see the relevance to the claim here when she has actually timely paid her rent on all content houses, and it is the kids who have in fact not paid rent at all. While I understand we aren't in a court of law, this would be deemed character evidence and circumstantial at best and would be inadmissible in an actual claim if factual, which I do not admit it is. It is purely dirt being used to paint Ari in a negative light." And dirt used to paint Ari in a negative light seems to be the main goal of Taylor Lorenz's article. How do I know this? Well, a variety of ways. First, there was a little enterprising Mississippi reporter who talked about this subject, and he noted Taylor chose to liberally quote some individuals who were promoting a negative narrative of R.H. Jacobs while omitting or choosing not to quote Ari's own rebuttals to these characterizations. A good example of Taylor's unscrupulous reporting here is the line she writes in her article: "Gary Vee says he has no affiliation with Influences." This is a jujitsu-like contortion to say something that is legally correct but almost entirely false with context. But that is Taylor's way. The full context—the actual context—not provided with Taylor is that while Gary Vaynerchuk has no business relationship with Influencers company, GaryVee does have a personal relationship with Ari Jacobs—a relationship I can document with video that shows Ari Jacobs and GaryVee are close enough that one of Ari's clients received a brand deal for this Super Bowl directly because of her relationship with Gary Vaynerchuk. That's the scoop. Wow. Wow. I couldn't wait to do this phone call because I get to go back to friends who I adore and change the course of somebody else's career who I enjoyed using very quickly, but I'm about to cry. Like you're happy so much. You're welcome. But I'll be honest with you, like this is really about you and Ari for me, um, you know, you know, and and honestly, you, this is a place where I can do something nice. I'm really excited that we were able to put this together, uh, Gary and I and both know Ari for a very, very…

Long time we're huge fans of everything that she's up to out there and just [Music] and these bullets of misleading statements are sewn like a scarlet letter throughout the article to needlessly obliterate Ari's character. Taylor reports the influencers signed by Ari Jacobs, living in the Kids Next Door house, were told they would, quote, have to pay more in rent. Jacobs' lawyers responded to this allegation prior to the article in their emails and called it a hundred percent false. Taylor ignored this.

Indeed, the TikTok tenants, teenagers inside Ari's content house, had admitted to Ari and her lawyers that they had taken side deals with brands in order to deliberately cut out Aryan influencers of contractually obligated commission. One of the TikTok tenants, Jesse Underhill, said that another one, Marcus Zolin, had told him to speak negatively about Ari to Taylor in order to avoid paying commissions or rent, indicating that they were able to damage Ari and influences enough they wouldn't have the resources to litigate the breaches and contract.

Indeed, I have Jesse Underhill on record saying, "Is it true that you talked to Ari and wanted to move into the house after Ari's talk on the balcony at the content house?" Jesse: "Yes." "Is it true that Taylor harassed—I am using that term closely—you to get negative info, dirt on Ari?" Jesse: "Um, inadvertently yes. She constantly asked for, quote, 'dirt on Ari,' and said that my statement would make or break the case." "Is it true that Marcus advised you to talk to the New York Times to get out of your contract?" Jesse: "Yes. I wasn't happy with Ari at the time and didn't want to be in the contract anymore." To speak negatively about Ari to Taylor in order to avoid paying commissions or rent, indicating that they were able to damage Ari and influences enough they wouldn't have the resources to litigate the breaches and contract. But I can go beyond that. I have another 16-year-old TikTokker who's familiar with the situation on background who says that Taylor spoke to she or he and said that speaking to her and giving negative information on Ari would really help them get Instagram verified—a little carrot on a stick, meaning, "If you help me, give me quotes, I'll put you in the article that'll make you more famous and probably get you Instagram verified." But when the TikTokker declined to say anything negative about Ari, Taylor told them she was disappointed in them and then took their quotes out of the article. This source is a minor, but I corroborated it with their parents. And I know anonymous sources are annoying; I don't want to have to use anonymous sources, but I am weighing the strength of the argument while simultaneously balancing the fact that I have multiple young TikTokkers and reporters who do not want to go off background for fear of being retaliated against by Taylor in their future careers, which I don't think is entirely unreasonable given Taylor's history and track record of lying and deliberately going after people who disagree with her. [Music]

Taylor, you know, basically, you know, bad information on Ari. Said that Taylor had offered Instagram verification. Yep. I mean, she said, you know, my words were, she said, "This will help you get verified." Verified towards the fact that she's going to help verify. What does this mean? Like, this article or no? This article. Okay, so implying this article that I'm writing will help you get Instagram verified? Yes. And then the other part was the not dirt but only wanted negative information, but it's not even that difficult. I think by even looking at the footage we can see Taylor's influence on these kids as some of the TikTok influencers use very specific language—language that makes me think they got it from Taylor. Waivers that anything aren't you acting as an agency without a license? Aren't you acting as an agency without a license? So all your documents are invalid, no? Legally, Tiana, are you an attorney? I'm legally smarter than you apparently. Let me be clear: they signed no talent agency contract with influences; they signed management or production contracts—a small but very important legal detail that Taylor seems to obfuscate in her reporting.

Like Taylor obfuscates the fact that the TikTokkers didn't call the police; Ari Jacobs called the police to the house. Taylor doesn't bother reporting that fact, just like Taylor does not bother reporting someone spray-painted "Ari is a [ __ ]" inside the Girls in the Valley house. Now, some TikTokkers say Ari Jacobs did this; Ari says some TikTokkers did this. I'll let you decide, but I think it's important to point out those photos somehow never made it into the reporting. But what did make it in, and I think this is important because it shows the depths of Taylor's dishonesty, is a quote by Devion Young, a really mean and insidious quote that has no business being in the article except, again, to hurt Ari's character. You see, Taylor quotes Drip [ __ ] founder Devion Young who says, "She already manipulates you; it's a nightmare." Devion Young said, "She used nude photos of his to shame him," quote, "right before reported way she leaked my nudes and sent them to business partners, people in my house and potential investors to slander my name, saying I was unprofessional." But Ari did not leak Devion's nudes, and Taylor has to know this because Taylor writes in the emails, "No one is alleging Ari leaked nudes," so Taylor knows Devion is likely lying to her. I have the emails: "No one is alleging Ari leaked nudes," and then includes the quote, "She leaked my nudes." What kind of reporting are we doing here? Because I also have the text between Ari and Devion regarding his nudes. You see, someone had made Ari aware that Devion Young's nudes were circulating on the internet. She then texts Devion to ask him, "Why are his nudes on the internet?" And his response manages to be unbelievable, claiming that his phone was getting fixed and therefore someone had access to his iCloud and leaked his nudes everywhere. These are the texts; you can read them. [Music]

But even more compelling that something shady is taking place is the fact that all the allegations alleged by Taylor and her article against Ari Jacobs, curiously, the exact same allegations are alleged against Devion Young at around the same time. Let me quote: "Multiple altercations have broken out between members of Drip Crib and its staff due to a total lack of income from any of its resident creators. Former residents complained that Drip Crib manager Davion Young is incompetent and extremely self-centered. [ __ ] has not made any payments on the mansion they rent since March. The property management company has been trying to entice them to leave or a victim but has been unsuccessful due to LA's current coveted freeze-on evictions. Since March, no rent or utility payments have been received by the property management company. Drip [ __ ] are unable to make rent payments because they are not landing gigs and brand deals they were initially promised by Devion Young." Instead, creators complain that Young has made the entire project about him and don't believe he cares about anyone else. Devion Young, who manages Drip, has not been following through with payments to his creators and has expressed frustration to many that he is not being paid by creators for rent. Man, does that seem really similar to the allegations being leveled against Ari Jacobs and Taylor's article? We went into thinking this: "We'd have brand deals weekly or monthly," Mr. Olin said. "We were expecting a quota where we could pick half of our rent through brand deals, but we weren't getting enough deals to cover our rent." That wasn't all. "We didn't have working Wi-Fi for a month," said Jesse. "We couldn't go live because our live stream would cut out. I used to get three to five brand deals a week since I moved in; it's one every two weeks and they're low-balling." At the end of July, the influencers were told they would have to cover a larger share of the rent. Since March, no rent or utility payments have been received by the property management company. Drip [ __ ] are unable to make rent payments because they are not landing gigs and brand deals they were initially promised by Devion Young. Taylor makes no mention of the fact that Devion Young has the exact same allegations against him while simultaneously liberally quoting him as a character assassination witness against Ari Jacobs, claiming she leaked his nudes. But while Young may say that and Taylor can quote him, it does not make the quote true.

I can play this game too. I can play this game all day. I can quote Ari saying that a UTA agent told her not to worry about Taylor because Taylor just wants to be famous. Taylor just wants to be famous. I was told by an agent at a very prominent talent agency that, "Don't worry about Taylor; she writes these things because she wants to be famous." Okay. They represent her, so her talent agency told you that? Yes. But that doesn't make the quote true. Or maybe it is true; maybe Taylor just wants to be famous, and she's willing to do it over the bodies of successful women and TikTokkers. She constantly asks for, quote, "dirt on Ari," my words. All I can say is Taylor reports line after dishonest line, like, quote, "Which resulted in several calls to local authorities to intervene." Taylor omits it was Ari who made the calls to local authorities—Ari, not the kids—or how Taylor interviews Chaz Stahl, another industry talent manager, but omits to Chaz she will be using his words directly against Ari Jacobs rather than in the abstract—a trick he realizes after the article is published and says, "Wait, his quotes weren't intended to reference Ari; he doesn't think Ari is a bad manager."

So I feel like if we were, we're about the same age, and so I think that we're very ingrained in the social digital world, and I think that perhaps I had a little bit of an edge on her, and and because I did have Gary Vaynerchuk sort of backing and he's looked at as somebody that's very knowledgeable in this space, right, uh, to discredit me would be to almost give her more credit, and I don't know, I I feel like there there would have been plenty of room for both of us. And I mean, there was a lot of buzz about me writing a book about the TikTok space, and Taylor um has a deal with Simon Issues, sure, about the TikTok space. I really don't know. I mean, I can't, you know, I can't speculate on what her intentions were, but several people have told me that they feel as though perhaps I was some competition for her in the space. Taylor conveniently leaves out a lot of complex convicts to distill a thorny and tangled story down to "female CEO bad and exploits children," when I would argue it is Taylor who exploits children with her leading questions and her massive power imbalance to get the quotes she wants.

Is it true that Taylor harassed—I am using that term closely—you to get negative info, dirt on Ari? Jesse: Um, inadvertently [Music] yes. [Music] Aggressive when she talks. [Music] [Music] And I can probably predict what Taylor would say against this that I've been tricked by Ari, that I didn't speak to Marcus or Benji, and that she did the real reporting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. As far as I'm concerned, currently on the New York Times article that Tiana Singer was promised money and fame and signed a management contract, but that is false. Whether Tiana lied to you or you misreported it, Taylor, I doubt you saw a signed management contract because your subject, Tiana Singer, never signed a management contract with Influences because here it is, still waiting to get signed. The only thing Tiana signed was a liability and footage waiver for being inside the Girls in the Valley house. I have it right here as well. Here is Tiana's signature, May 23, 2020, and it promises no money or no fame, but I guess Taylor missed the nuance of these contracts. Taylor's reporting has holes in it the size of Swiss cheese; her methods are questionable at best, and she operates from a place of fear because I'm not finished. Any disagreement with Taylor's narrative events is met with both public and private vitriol, like when Reuters did a story on R Jacobs and Taylor said this on Twitter: "Or wait a minute, what about Taylor? You'll know this story when female reporter Christy Smith interviewed Ari Jacobs after you did and ran a story, and then you went around this female reporter's back, called her boss and ranted to her editor that it was irresponsible to interview Ari Jacobs, that you should not be giving Ari Jacobs a platform because she's a literal abuser." Taylor thrashes one woman, and when another woman reports on that woman, she goes behind that woman's back and calls her boss to get her in trouble. These actions strike me as deeply troubling and tyrannical. What Taylor liked to call my boss as well, the number is John 316. So this New York Times reporter has a possible and very real conflict of interest, reporting on one agency while signed to a competitor but doesn't disclose this at all, and that is demonstrated selectively pulling clothes to procure evidence to push R Jacobs, like so many women prior, into a negative light. This should be a warning to any influencer, TikTokker, YouTuber: this reporter is dishonest; they have an agenda, and if you stand in the way of their agenda, they will move to crush you. And not to belabor the point, but I think it's worth noting Taylor went after Claudia and Jackie Oshry, two female entrepreneurs, for not towing the gender line; she went after her colleague, Zineb; she went after female founder Steph Cory; she went after female developer Mason; she went after female immigrant founder Ari Jacobs; and then went after the female reporter for reporting on Ari Jacobs. Taylor is all about building patterns to prove a narrative. I think Taylor has a pattern. She told you this is why Black creators can't be great because of their teams. And I was wondering, is that that's she said that to you? She did say that. I mean, I'm just just being honest. So she, when the New York Times didn't get what they wanted, she says this is she she kind of attacks you. This is why Black creators can't be great. Yeah. It definitely made I mean, my my experience of industry was challenged, my everything, right in front of my client. And I mean, I'm not hearing someone who um you know works for the New York Times and you know it's been an industry for a long time. She said she started as a publicist, and I don't know what I'm talking about. And as far as being an exclusive, exclusive concludes everything. And like I said, you have to be specific. You said you didn't know what you're talking about to you or to your client. So you guys are all on a group call, and she tells your client that you don't know what you're doing as a publicist and that and Taylor then says, "I used to work as a publicist; your publicist doesn't know what she's doing," and then she says, "This is why Black creators can't be great," all while you're on the call. How did that make you feel? Um, it made me feel like the audacity of this person who has not felt or been a part of our struggle as far as advocates for these creators come in and tell us why they aren't great. Not one of those people. I'm a leader too. I love multiple perspectives, but it was an insult because for someone who has dedicated their college experience to making to ensuring that these digital creators didn't have successfully done it that these digital creators get the um get the exposure, the money they deserve whatever, and it was it was really insulting. The intentions of what she said in that moment couldn't have been to for us to take he choose to change as much as trying to hurt me in that moment because that was also said like you. It feels like you're just ringing their opportunity. And I would when she said you're trying to ruin their opportunity, was that on the phone call too? Yeah. So Distractify ran a story, and then Taylor said, "You're trying to ruin their opportunity; this is why Black creators can't be great, and and you don't know how to do your job," all because Distractify ran a story. Yeah. Now that you're saying that, yeah, yeah, I'm curious, do you think she said all that stuff on the call because she thought she could get away with saying it to you? 100. I feel like in this industry, in this world, people don't do things intentionally if they don't know that that is something that's okay or has been permitted before.

Let's talk about Clubhouse. For those not familiar, Clubhouse is an app that allows people to group chat via their phones and set up rooms to talk about ideas. It sounds like this: I think it's boring, but Taylor feels differently. When Clubhouse was in beta, she got special access and spent her hours documenting every instance of political incorrectness she could find, and then, with the eagerness of a marathon runner bringing news to Athens, she published her blacklist on Medium. She called it "Clubhouse Moderation Issues and Incidents." Specific choice examples of Taylor's moderation issues and incidents are: "Tonight on Clubhouse, a room where users say sex work is unacceptable." "Tonight on Clubhouse, VC hosting group panel on Curtis Yarvin, a far-right blogger and Breitbart writer, often called, quote, 'the alt-right's favorite philosophy instructor.'" Often called that by whom? Taylor. Also on Clubhouse tonight, quote, "a white teal fellow telling a room, 'I just think, quote, racism is so overblown.'" Okay, people, literally random people, may speak obnoxiously and have problematic conversations, and Taylor can call them out if she wants; I do not care if people say stupid things, nor do I care if Taylor wants to cosplay as hall monitor and police speech. What I do care about is after this New York Times reporter had enumerated the reasons why she thought Clubhouse was toxic and why she was quitting: "I don't plan on opening the app again; I don't want to support any network that doesn't take user safety seriously." After allegedly quitting, Taylor was soon back with a new anonymous account trolling for stories, and when she could not find a real story, she fabricated one. In February 2020, this New York Times reporter posted on Twitter that venture capitalist Mark Andreessen was just openly using the the R slur on Clubhouse tonight and not one person in the room was calling him on it or doing anything about it. False. Total lie. The moderator of that room, Nate Jones, immediately rebuked Taylor's accusation. "I modded that room; here's what actually happened," Felicia explained that the Redditors called themselves, quote, "R-word revolution," but Mark never used that word ever. He referenced, quote, "deep in value," end quote. That's all. And this is why people block because of this horseshit dishonesty. So this New York Times reporter, like so many times before, is caught in a clear lie, but instead of issuing an apology for falsely accusing a man, she doubles down. "Everyone in the group chat room except for herself." "Thanks for clarifying it was Felicia saying that word rather than Mark as many in the room heard it." I hope you can understand how some people in the room felt hearing it, which is a great frame narrative distortion because nobody in that room heard Mark say the R-word except Taylor, and nobody felt any way about it except Taylor. And Kaylee goes on to say, "People who use that word should think more carefully about what they're saying," but I would argue perhaps this New York Times reporter should think more carefully about the facts she reports as she seems to get a lot of them wrong. She is the Donald Trump of reporters; gets caught, lies, looks you straight in the face and doubles down. "Thanks for clarifying it was Felicia saying that word rather than marked as many in the room heard it." Bro, I feel like I should add in here what is even taking place with Taylor accusing Mark of calling people. Why is even a word in people's vocabulary in this situation? Recently, a lot of retail investors have gotten into the market with the rise of Robin Hood. A lot of people that would normally not have access to the stock market are having fun with the stock market, and they're investing in all kinds of zany things like Dogecoin or GameStop. Legacy investors, legacy institutional media, don't understand this, and they're generally condescending and negative towards these new retail investors. They call them idiots; they call them fools; they call them dumb money. There is a level of of arrogance and condescension towards these new retail investors. These new retail investors recognize they're getting condescended to, and so they take that agency back. This is an anagram of traders say, "Okay, we're not legitimate traders; fine, it's an anagram," and it's an anagram deliberately designed to take back agency that, "Hey, we can make investments too. You may call us dumb money, but we're going to make the investment decisions we want to." That is the energy behind the word in this situation; it's not used as a slur towards anyone; it's not used derogatorily. That is the context. Unfortunately, we are not finished with Taylor or Clubhouse or Mark Andreessen because a few weeks after falsely attributing the R-slur.

To mark Andreessen, she publishes an article in the New York Times where she again reiterates her real or imagined stress that people are having unfettered conversations on Clubhouse. And for good measure, in addition, tweets a thread about how intimidation, female journalist, has ruined her life. It's here where Tiger Carlson on Fox News and Glenn Green won't get all turnt up like overpriced avocado toast, which I think was unfortunate because it politicized and distracted from what was a real malicious slander by a New York Times reporter against Mark Andreessen.

But forget about Fox News for a second. Do any of us think it is acceptable for the New York Times to misattribute actions to people without evidence? No. Hands sad because she again targeted Mark Andreessen a few weeks later. They're writing, "It's Friday night and Mark Andreessen and Charles C. Johnson are in a room bashing me on Clubhouse." False. Here's the context: the Clubhouse room was titled "Taylor Lorenz fans only," and the assertion that Mark was bashing her is false. A recording of the conversation showed the only words Mark said were literally, quote, "I don't want to talk, I'm here to listen. I don't want to talk, I'm here to listen." And when Taylor gets called on the lie, she, you guessed it, deletes the tweet.

You know this reminds me of someone. Another fake allegation that he simply erases when it's not true. How many times is Keemstar gonna be allowed to do this? Another fake allegation she simply erases when it's not true. How many times will Taylor be allowed to do this? It's almost like this New York Times reporter has a personal grievance against Mark Andreessen and is searching for any way to publicly wound him, whether through fact or fiction.

But finally, in Taylor's infinite audacity, after misattributing smear quotes to people and ruining numerous women's lives, writes on the internet for International Women's Day, "Please consider supporting women in doing online intimidation." It's not an exaggeration to say that the intimidation smear campaign I've had to endure over the past year has destroyed my life. No one should have to go through this. And attached a link to an article. I agree with Taylor: gender intimidation is real. But Taylor seems to be doing a lot of intimidation, and I read every word of the article, Taylor Soros, because I wanted to take her tweet seriously. The article details one relatively poor Black reporter living in the Philippines who has been the target of, in particular, the dictator, dirty. I'm not entirely clear how this applies to Taylor, the American living in Los Angeles working for the New York Times. But one interesting datum were the attacks on credibility. Well, I have a problem with Taylor's credibility.

This video is not an attack on her personal life, nor her gender, nor her value as a human being. Taylor trolls her negative narratives on public figures to make her reporting go viral, and when she can't find any, she stitches them together with tweets, teenagers, and troubling quotes. She is quick to judge her subjects negatively, slow to divulge her own conflicts of interest, and rapid to use her gender as both a pro bar to verbally bludgeon women and as a shield to obfuscate accountability by men. She is a strategic promoter of her own work and a swift destroyer of other people's in the court of public opinion. She is a bully pushing people around on the playground. Okay, I'm in a Twitter world, Philly deep now. I hope you guys give Phil a piece of your mind. So funny you can't tell what's a joke. You think she said all that stuff on the call because she thought she could get away with saying it to you?

When I was a teenager, I worked at McDonald's. I grew up outside a small Midwest town, and there were not a lot of job opportunities. And I can definitively say serving fries is not as romantic as dancing for TikTok. But I did learn honesty and integrity. I made many mistakes in my youth, but later when I wanted to do more in my life, I moved to New York City in my car. I arrived in New York City with an old car, a 500 camera, and knowing nobody. I grabbed any journalism job I could find, and it took me years to make any money or meet people in the YouTube community. Now, not every entertainer is an angel, but when I watch a supposed star reporter for the New York Times so dishonestly write about YouTubers and TikTokers and people who maybe move to the city to chase a dream, get lied about and destroyed to feel copy in Sunday's paper, man, does that make me despise that reporter. A reporter who makes their living pulling down the dreams of young entertainers and tech developers and lying about other people. And if she did it honestly, I would be the first to defend her work. But Taylor is dishonest and read by millions of Americans who take her and her accusations seriously, and there is real harm in that.

So what can we do to beat it? Well, the simplest answer is to support the very women Taylor wants to suppress. Support Arya Jacobs, the female immigrant entrepreneur. Support Jackie and Claudia Oshiri. Support ZaneB. Support Brandy. Support Mason Hartman. Steph Corey, female writer Christy. Support the women Taylor tries to destroy. And finally, Taylor, because I know you're watching this video, I'm on a rooftop in the West Village, so life has been pretty good. But before Taylor responds, let me remind her who has the power and the privilege. I grew up in the Midwest and worked at McDonald's. She grew up in ultra-wealthy Greenwich, Connecticut, went to a fancy Swiss boarding school, and flouts around LA with the full backing of the New York Times while lying about women and other reporters. I am not the patriarchy; you are. Society, our focus besides not getting hit by [Music] cars, don't count on me, cause I'm not listening on the corner [Music].