The Culture Wars, “25 Cats That Look Like Philip Rieff” Edition

In today’s On the Square , Travis LaCouter makes the case for why conservatives need to get on to websites like Buzzfeed and start making lists:

There are signs to suggest that Buzzfeed’s readers are yearning for something more than the shallow nihilism and bald secularism currently on tap, however. A recent feature report written by internal Buzzfeed staff highlighted the story of Brittni Ruiz, a former adult film actress who left the porn industry after discovering faith in Jesus Christ. The piece portrayed Ruiz in an unironically favorable light and approvingly quotes a Christian pastor who says that pornography is “a misrepresentation of sex.” Though the piece ultimately trends towards a therapeutically individualistic dénouement (it concludes by quoting Ruiz saying she “never wants to be labeled”), it could rightly be said that for a website such as Buzzfeed, with the audience it serves, to admit that anything could be a “misrepresentation of sex” is a huge step in the right direction.

Read the rest here . It’s interesting to read this piece in light of the recent controversy over Personhood USA’s Buzzfeed list . While most of the public reaction to the list has been fairly negative , as of this morning the recorded reactions at the bottom of the page are split pretty evenly between “positive” and “negative” reactions, with a slight majority leaning positive. At the very least, it seems fair to say this list was much more successful than the Heritage Foundation’s attempt at doing the same sort of thing .

Despite being a twenty-something good-for-nothing, I think I can count the number of times I’ve been to Buzzfeed on one hand. I mentioned this to another group of twenty-something good-for-nothings, and was met with a chorus of “yeah, who goes there anyway?” Then somebody silently, slowly, guiltily, raised her hand.

“I have to go look at pictures of cats somewhere ,” she said.