Aram Zucker-Scharff

“

What these people are doing is reminding women that, no matter who they are, they are still women. They are forever vulnerable.

The racy images of these nubile bodies are the biggest story on the internet, and every site that refuses to reprint the images has already left itself absolved while leaving a prurient trail of breadcrumbs. The permanency of such violation is a bitter thing.

”

– “The Great Naked Celebrity Photo Leak of 2014 is just the beginning.”

Just attaching ‘gate’ to the end of every controversial thing that pops into the news is bullshit, historically blind, and beyond insulting. There’s no way for the audience to understand that they should be concerned about something unless you attach ‘gate’ to the end of it?

The repeated use and assumptions involved in ‘*-gate’-ing things is like the ultimate media-to-audience insult. By doing so, media outlets assume you don’t know what Watergate was and you’re too stupid to understand why a topic should make you furious unless they ‘gate’ it. Even worse… it implies that unless someone attaches -gate to the end of something, it’s not really a big deal. Too bad there’s no finance-crisis-gate, gun-deaths-gate, or ebola-gate, apparently, they’re not worth caring about.

Adding -gate assumes your audience is idiots, robs them of any need to understand history, and devalues other coverage. It’s incredibly condescending. Don’t do it.

“Ms. Lawrence and the other victims have absolutely nothing to apologize for in terms of the contents of the photos or the nature in which they were leaked. The story itself should not be addressed as if it were a scandal, but rather what it is: A sex crime involving theft of personal property and the exploitation of the female body.”

– Jennifer Lawrence Nude Photo Leak Isn’t A “Scandal.” It’s A Sex Crime.

““Everything we blog, everything we Tweet, and everything we click is a public act of making media. We are the new editors. We decide what gets attention based on what we give our attention to. That’s how the media works now. There’s all these hidden algorithms that decide what you see more of and what we all see more of based on what you click on, and that in turn shapes our whole culture.””

– “Don’t like clickbait? Don’t click”, Sally Kohn (2014)