pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Just spitballing here, if hiring a WOC is bad because it makes Pitchfork look like they tokenizing WOC, the alternative should be ... what exactly?

Just pointing out that I've already answered that upthread.

I'm sorry, English is my first language I'm still learning how to speak Huge Dumbass

they've created the appearance that they've only hired her because she is a black woman

citation needed that anyone at all, anywhere, thinks this

i would think pitchfork changing its policy for one specific writer to avoid the appearance of what fred is talking about would be more demeaning/condescending/tokenizing than exactly what happened, which is she said she wasn't responsible for the final score/BNM status, something I've said publicly in the past about my own pieces there

but yes i agree they should hire more black people

to be specific -- and I apologize if this is a wording issue, but it doesn't seem to be -- you seem to be implying here that the only reason a black woman would be commissioned to write for a website for the first time is because she is "an outside perspective" to them and not because she is a colleague of editors who know her and/or her work.

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Tuesday, May 1, 2018 2:10 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think it doesn't take that much to imagine that a bunch of clueless white editors could hire a WOC writer just to score woke points for the marketing team. it happens, it happened, and it will happen again. maybe it's not the specific case of Rahawa, not everyone is buddy buddy with lots of music journalism to know the specifics of her career and her relationships with publications, but making an assumption that sometimes some privileged white males hire WOC for the wrong reasons, is grounded in some realities. It happens all the time in the film industry, for example.

yes, I already said I realize that is a thing that happens, frequently, in journalism, but it's shitty to make that one's default assumption

I'm sorry, English is my first language I'm still learning how to speak Huge Dumbass

― we æt so many shimripl (Whiney G. Weingarten), 1. maj 2018 20:20 (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, this was definitely so cryptically written: The solution isn't to not criticizing that hiring, it's to diversify the editorial process.

gotcha

xpost

I guess there is a grammar error in there, but still.

i think it doesn't take that much to imagine that a bunch of clueless white editors could hire a WOC writer just to score woke points for the marketing team.

You really think the **marketing team** of the place that considers "millennial males" it's core gives a fuck about "woke points"? It would probably be MORE profitable if Pitchfork catered to the Very Online White Male and the many sponsors that don't want to deal with music that might have an f-word

I don't know that sponsors have any problems with Danes.

xp see: everyone on reddit

You continue to misinterpret me after I've explained it like ten times. It's pretty hard not to think it's deliberate. No, I'm not saying that pitchfork only hired her because she is a black woman, I'm saying they've created the appearance that they've only hired her because she is a black woman. The disconnect between her text and their score makes it seem as if they don't trust her reviewing skills, MAKING IT SEEM that they only hired her because she is a black woman.

― Frederik B, Tuesday, May 1, 2018 2:15 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

could it be that this appearance is a cognitive distortion of your very own self

Conde Nast, the company that owns Pitchfork, also owns Reddit, hub of racism communities, MRAs, paedos and creepshottters. The leap in logic to thinking Pitchfork would get a WOC to review anything because of "marketing" is more cynical than any reality

You really think the **marketing team** of the place that considers "millennial males" it's core gives a fuck about "woke points"? It would probably be MORE profitable if Pitchfork catered to the Very Online White Male and the many sponsors that don't want to deal with music that might have an f-word

― we æt so many shimripl (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, May 1, 2018 2:34 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It happens for TV series and advertising that care to sell stuff to the regular hipster, I don't think it's that much a stretch to think if Pitchfork were vile they could do that. But thank god I used the word 'could' to talk about a hypothetical, this way I'm certain no paid writer for a national magazine would ever confuse it with an actual factual statement.

Plus, I did not mention pitchfork per se, but whatever Whiney, Whiney away.

this desk has created the appearance that it is a pillow, which is why I keep hitting my head against it

I personally think Pitchfork should go back to catering to Gen Xers and our alt rock. That's real music, not this crappy synth stuff. Barf out!!!

also, generally in journalism, if someone is a cynical and poorly intentioned editor just looking to hire someone for "woke points" they generally will hire young and/or new writers for things like op-eds, not established writers for reviews of prestige albums

VHS, why would I imagine you were talking about Pitchfork in the Pitchfork thread?

You really think the **marketing team** of the place that considers "millennial males" it's core gives a fuck about "woke points"? It would probably be MORE profitable if Pitchfork catered to the Very Online White Male and the many sponsors that don't want to deal with music that might have an f-word

― we æt so many shimripl (Whiney G. Weingarten), 1. maj 2018 20:34 (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know you're kidding, Whiney, but literally the only non-positive review on Metacritic, a mixed one from the Guardian, is by a white man complaining that the album is too commercial and impersonal. White men are really, really into seeming 'woke'. And yes, I notice the irony.

this desk has created the appearance that it is a pillow, which is why I keep hitting my head against it

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), 1. maj 2018 20:42 (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Holy fuck that you keep on doing this.

White men are really, really into seeming 'woke'. And yes, I notice the irony.

why are you still posting

lol

VHS, why would I imagine you were talking about Pitchfork in the Pitchfork thread?

― we æt so many shimripl (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, May 1, 2018 2:44 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if you had followed the conversation instead of trying to pwn people on a message board, etc

I mean, in all honesty I'm not that surprised, I've seen you do this exact same thing before if someone criticizes pitchfork, katherine, but I honestly still didn't think you would sink so low.

lmao what

also, generally in journalism, if someone is a cynical and poorly intentioned editor just looking to hire someone for "woke points" they generally will hire young and/or new writers for things like op-eds, not established writers for reviews of prestige albums

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Tuesday, May 1, 2018 2:43 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'll keep that in mind when I read reviews in the future.

Having to correct the exact same misreading 15 times, then the same idiot who can't/won't read making jokes about stuff being repeated. Christ almighty, I guess you should just be ignored, huh?

Oh sweet, Rahawa writes for Pitchfork now? I liked the piece she wrote last year for Outside.

you are correct that I cannot read

Rahawa is a marvelous writer and she wrote well about Monae. That's my contribution to this edifying thread.

appreciate rahawa linking to sasha geffen's bisexual lighting piece, which is really great itself

xp upbuilding discourse

sorry if I upset anyone, also, or if I said anything wrong

i can tell you as a writer nothing is cooler than when everyone ignores the arguments you actually make in favor of debating the relationship between the score and the writer as if it even matters

Apology not accepted! You people toadilly ignored my Gen X audience suggestion for Pitchfork. How do you think that made me fee? Bad!

sorry

(specifically, I am sorry for "sinking so low"; I don't remember when I did that, or what I said wrong, but whatever it is, I apologize. this isn't bullshit. I don't know what to say to get across the fact that it isn't but it isn't)

this is like one step removed from people frothing at the mouth over BOTW getting an 8.8

What's BOTW? I Googled and then wished I hadn't (based on the Urban Dictionary entry that was excerpted in the first page of hits).

zelda (breath of the wild - an undisputed masterpiece)

haha, that came up too

I'm sorry, English is my first language I'm still learning how to speak Huge Dumbass

― we æt so many shimripl (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, May 1, 2018 1:20 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao...my mans in vintage form here

i wish you womenfolk would just SHUT UP and listen to freddie b tell you he cares so much about women's voices in pop journalism

Look, let me mansplain it to you people. These days the music is all made by computers. There's no feeling in it. Barf city!! Back in my day, the 90s, that was real music, made by people not machines.

btw - thanks to J0rdan et al. for explaining how the process works at Pfork (and elsewhere). As a reader, I guess I assumed (maybe naively) that the reviewer assigned the rating, maybe with some editorial "oversight" to make sure not every album is either a 6 or a 9, etc.

or a 6.9 -- nice

I've found Pitchfork no more score-centric when assigning reviews than other publications for whom scores matter. The subtleties of decimal points are lost on me, though.