Washington Post illustration by Eddie Alvarez
In December, an online opinion piece headlined “Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America” appeared in Teen Vogue magazine. Within hours, the harsh indictment of the then-president-elect exploded on the internet: Comments sections erupted in debate, and egg-avatars trolled the writer, Teen Vogue Weekend Editor Lauren Duca, on Twitter.
But it wasn’t just the subject of the article that caused the uproar; it was the nature of the publication that ran it. What was a political piece doing in a teen magazine?
When Duca appeared on a Fox News talk show to discuss her piece and the reaction to it, host Tucker Carlson admonished her to “stick to thigh-high boots.”
The comment — and the fuss — didn’t faze Duca. She’d heard it all before.