Sidelines on Gawker.com
I was incredibly amazed and proud when my paper’s staff found out that our editor-in-chief’s recent opinions column about MTV’s reality tv-show “The Paper” had been picked up and analyzed on Gawker.com, a highly influential and high-trafficked blog that I read daily.
I still don’t know how, exactly, blog-giant Gawker stumbled upon Sidelines’ content, but I was excited nonetheless.
http://gawker.com/382169/high-school-journalists-are-so-immature-says-college-journalist
The writers over at Gawker are infamously sassy and snarky. I was relieved, then, that they seemed to agree with the content of the column (that, or their sardonic comments were so cleverly hidden I saw right past them).
The comments on the article, though, royally ticked me off. Aside from random, generic “yo-mama” degradations of the writer, this one in particular sent me into an almost-rage:
“Andy lost me at Middle Tennessee State.”
You know what? I am so tired of blanket stereotypes of the South, of intolerance and prejudice against any-and-all people who might proudly call Tennessee his/her home. As a journalism student, every single professor that I have had has been incredibly accomplished. Pulitzer Prize winners. Former directors of AP Bureaus. Former writers and, even, higher-ups at The New York Times. Filmmakers whose films have been featured at Cannes. Most have been published authors. Most are intimidatingly successful and intelligent.
My fellow students, too–although there are obviously exceptions, as Yale and Harvard can probably attest to, as well–are erudite, motivated, liberal, wonderful people. I’ve known MTSU students who have gone on to work at Rolling Stone, at newspapers across the country, at too many places to name. I just secured an incredibly competitive internship at my absolute favorite publication in the country in NYC (where, omg, I’ve like lived in before, cuz, like, I’ve actually seen the world outside of Tennessee, as have most).
I just wish that whole elitist mentality would go away along with racism and sexism. Geographyism, I shall call it.
Please, just get over yourself.
Thanks. [/endrant]
