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.