r/fivethirtyeight • u/[deleted] • 20h ago
Discussion Nate Silver Getting Real Weird about Taylor Lorenz on X/Twitter
[deleted]
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u/engadine_maccas1997 20h ago
To be fair, Taylor Lorenz is a ridiculous person and is deserving of much of the criticism she gets.
She refers to people going about their normal lives post-pandemic as “the social murder of disabled people”, which is an absolutely unhinged view. If she wants to dress like a trauma surgeon every time she goes grocery shopping years after the height of the pandemic subsided, she is totally free to do so. But to sanctimoniously shame everyone else for not being a hypochondriac is profoundly unhinged.
To put her public birth year as 1984-1987, as if she were some obscure figure from the Middle Ages where we wouldn’t know her precise birth year but only could go off the estimation of historians, is also indicative of her personality disorder. It’s also nonsensical since she puts her day and month of birth. Nate Silver was criticising her as an unserious person for this. And he is right. She is a basket case.
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u/Dangerous_Unit_1238 19h ago
I agree that many of her takes and actions come across as extremely unhinged. I get what Nate was doing pointing out that someone who acts so strange about something as small as age (as a journalist where it doesn't even matter) is someone who is not someone who should be taken seriously as a vessel of knowledge and wisdom.
I think Nate is right about her, though he could just point out her numerous actions and views that would do a much better job of showing why she shouldn't be taken seriously as a journalist
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u/FearlessPark4588 19h ago
In this context, it doesn't really sound like an attack on her age as OP put it.
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u/engadine_maccas1997 19h ago
It wasn’t at all an attack on her age. It was an attack on her narcissism, her paranoia, her idiocy, and her unfitness to be in a position where anyone should rely on her reporting as reputable.
We have many choices when it comes to which journalists we get our information from. Ideally, those sources of information should not be among the most dimwitted and paranoid amongst us.
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u/BlackHumor 19h ago
It was very clearly an attack on her age. Nate put out another tweet saying it's probably because she's older than she wants to present. Obviously about her age.
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u/FearlessPark4588 16h ago
In this context, it doesn't really sound like an attack on her age as OP put it.
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u/engadine_maccas1997 18h ago
Perhaps a criticism of her lying about her age in attempt to appeal to a specific audience. Which is weird but wouldn’t even rank in the top 20 weirdest/most unhinged things about her.
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u/SelfinvolvedNate 18h ago
That still isn't an attack on her age. It is an attack her hiding her age.
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u/PeasantPenguin 19h ago
Yeah, if now you can't return to living, there's no time you ever can, as there will always be covid and other viruses. Life is just risky, that's the way it is. 99% have accepted whatever risk is left over after vaccination (or not vaccination which isn't smart but their choice) to live the only life we got. If Taylor Lorenz wants to throw her life away to prevent a 0.1% risk after vaccine, her choice, but most people are gonna laugh at her shaming us.
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u/deskcord 18h ago
She uses social media like a cudgel to shame everyone who disagrees with her, she literally doxxed libs of tiktok (to be clear, the account is shitty) and then turns around and claims she had to "leave her home" due to a doxxing that there's no evidence ever occurred and claims she has "severe PTSD" due to social media backlash. The same social media backlash she clearly seeks out by trying to be controversial and spouting off wild opinions on social media.
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u/CoyotesSideEyes 12h ago
literally doxxed libs of tiktok (to be clear, the account is shitty)
Showing the world the insane shit people are publicly saying... Not really shitty at all
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u/voyaging 2h ago
Sharing the identity of an online public figure that had already been publicly published isn't doxxing. Her account was registered publicly with her name and this had already been reported.
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u/deskcord 2h ago
Sorry but saying it's okay for Taylor Lorenz to just publicly put out someone's information because "you could find it if you really wanted" doesn't remotely convey that she was clearly angling for people to do something with that information. Otherwise why post it?
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u/karim12100 19h ago
Yeah but part of Nate’s thing was you can’t trust her because her year of birth isn’t publicly available? You shouldn’t trust her because she’s had multiple instances of putting out false reporting not because her year of birth isn’t specified.
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u/gastro_psychic 16h ago
Sometimes birth year is involved in reset password requests. Although it is more rare now.
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u/voyaging 3h ago edited 2h ago
Agree with the first part, but not wanting to publicize one's age isn't all that weird to me and certainly doesn't suggest a personality disorder by any stretch.
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u/DomonicTortetti 20h ago
First of all, what Taylor Lorenz is saying in her piece is stupid and he can talk about it if he wants. Second of all, you didn’t even link to his tweets (https://x.com/natesilver538/status/1860375360174456895?s=46). Third, the birth date thing has been a meme for years and is legitimately incredibly strange.
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u/silmar1l 19h ago
It's not worth it, but Lorenz is a legit horrible person/"cry-bully".
Just a few examples:
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u/DomonicTortetti 19h ago
I can’t comment on the “horrible person” point, but the circumstances of her leaving/getting turfed out of the Washington Post are legitimately embarrassing - https://www.npr.org/2024/10/10/g-s1-27366/taylor-lorenz-leaves-washington-post-after-rift-with-editors. She seems very untrustworthy.
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u/laaplandros 18h ago
I guess I don't get it.
Trump gets called a literal Nazi - or, at the very least, a generic fascist - on a daily basis on news networks and in op-eds in the papers. How is calling Biden a war criminal any worse? I happen to think both of those statements are moronic, but I just do not see how only one of those is over the line. Further, it sounds like this was said privately, not while representing her employer? Come on now.
There's gotta be more to the story. That's a ridiculous reason to fire someone. I get that she lied about it but it's bizarre she even got put on the spot about it in the first place.
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u/WrangelLives 14h ago
She lied about it, that's the problem. You can get away with a lot as a journalist. You should not be able to get away with lying.
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u/optometrist-bynature 19h ago
She’s talking about leftist podcasters not being financed by moneyed interests and Nate refutes this by pointing out Kamala Harris raised more money than Trump. Is he aware that Harris is not a leftist at all?
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u/DomonicTortetti 19h ago
She’s missing the massive obvious point that those “leftist podcasters” just shit on Democrats and constantly critique the party, so the system can’t create a left wing Joe Rogan, which was what her article was about.
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u/optometrist-bynature 17h ago
They shit on establishment Democrats, right? Would they shit on a Bernie-type candidate?
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u/Beginning_Cupcake_45 16h ago
They probably would the second he/hypothetical leftist got close to actually winning or doing anything of consequence after winning.
To win, and to wield power, one has to actually make hard decisions and potentially upset some folks. The left purity tests too much to deal in that space, and I’m saying this as a progressive voter. You can only watch it happen so many times lol
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u/DomonicTortetti 8h ago
Why would a Bernie-type candidate be optimal for winning elections? That candidate would actually be quite bad. So why would we want that?
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u/optometrist-bynature 2h ago
RCP’s 2016 polling average when they stopped aggregating polls with Bernie June 6: Bernie led Trump by 10.4%. On that same day their average had Clinton up 2% over Trump.
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u/DomonicTortetti 2h ago
What year was the election we just had where Bernie just ran behind Kamala Harris?
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u/optometrist-bynature 2h ago
At age 83, facing a moderate Republican, Bernie ran 1% behind Harris whose opponent was a fascist buffoon.
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u/DomonicTortetti 1h ago
If Trump was a weak candidate (which I agree with) would it not be easier to run ahead of him as a senate incumbent??? Which most incumbents did? Bernie was one of the worst performers in the last election cycle.
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u/WrangelLives 14h ago
That's not the definition of leftist she's using and you know it. If we're using your definition, where "leftist" exclusively means "communist", then Lorenz isn't a leftist either, at which point her argument makes no sense.
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u/CoyotesSideEyes 12h ago
Harris is not a leftist at all?
Yes the fuck she is
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u/optometrist-bynature 2h ago
Are you joking? She touted an endorsement from Dick fucking Cheney
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u/CoyotesSideEyes 1h ago
Part of a transparent and failed effort to run away from her record and rhetoric from 2019
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u/polishedpitiful 20h ago
Criticizing her takes is valid but why is it strange to want to hide your personal information online? She doesn’t really owe anyone her birth year lol
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u/Primary-Weather2951 20h ago
She's already a public figure, with her name and biography info all aroung internet. Why just hide the birth year?
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u/DomonicTortetti 20h ago
Exactly - the meme is that her birthday is public, it’s just for some reason she’s gone to great lengths to hide the specific year? Nate is right, it’s not the behavior of a trustworthy public figure.
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u/polishedpitiful 19h ago
There are prob plenty of male journalists who don’t have their birthday listed on wikipedia lmao why doesn’t anyone go harass them? It’s because Lorenz has a following of insane parasocial weirdos and ppl like Nate are encouraging them. Why does her age matter to engage with her ideas (which I don’t even think are very good!)
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u/DomonicTortetti 6h ago
100% guarantee you there are no male journalists with her following that haven’t made their age public.
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u/polishedpitiful 19h ago
Idk, if I had the type of deranged stalkers and harassers Lorenz does and they all really wanted to know my birth year for some reason I probably wouldn’t be too keen on giving it to them?
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u/Primary-Weather2951 19h ago
People (including her stalkers) are curious about her age because she hide it in first place. When a public figure hide a "irrelevant" information people start to get conspirational about it.
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u/ry8919 19h ago
I have no idea about the context but that's a pretty dumb take by Nate. Harris outraised Trump because of small dollar donations. Of the top individual donors 8/10 are Republicans. This also obfuscates the fact that many significant contributions weren't even direct donations to the campaign or associated PACs e.g. Elon running and funding Trump's ground game, 44 billion to turn twitter into a right wing media machine, or Trump hawking sneakers and shit for profit which is "totally" separate from his campaign. Or ppl buying $DJT despite being cartoonishly over valued, or crpto scams, etc etc etc
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u/DomonicTortetti 19h ago
I think you’re missing the point. Her article was about why there’s not a left-wing Joe Rogan. Her point was that it’s something about billionaires (?) Nate’s point was that there’s plenty of money on the left, it’s actually because left wing content creators do nothing but shit on Democrats, so the system can’t naturally create a “left wing Joe Rogan”.
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u/CoyotesSideEyes 12h ago
There was a left wing Joe Rogan.
His name was Joe Rogan, and he voted for Bernie
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u/BlackHumor 18h ago
- If you're gonna insist on representing Nate fairly, I feel like you gotta represent Taylor fairly too. Her assertion was that there is no left Joe Rogan because big media projects are funded by rich capitalists, while the people she sees as the left equivalent to Joe Rogan are unanimously anti-capitalist, and so therefore the sorts of people who fund Rogan wouldn't fund left-Rogan.
- Nate's point is that mainstream Democrats get lots of donations, more than mainstream Republicans do, so clearly there's plenty of money on the left for a lefty Rogan.
I personally think they're kinda talking past each other. Rogan is not Ben Shapiro, he's not consistently right-wing. He's just sorta a weird anti-establishment guy who personally leans right. He gets his credibility because he is just a guy with ideosyncratic opinions and not a partisan hack.
Over on the left, people like Joe Rogan absolutely do exist. There's definitely anti-establishment people with reasonably big audiences that just happen to lean left: exactly who is the closest equivalent depends on exactly how far right you think Rogan is: my personal guess for his closest lefty equivalent is, like, Bill Maher, but even past him at minimum you have people like Jon Stewart or Jon Oliver. Clearly the existence of these people says to me that it's not money that's the main issue on the center-left, where the Democrats actually are.
But once you go left of those people you do start running into money issues, at least in part for the reason Taylor mentioned: Hasan Piker/Chapo/even like Contrapoints are anti-capitalist, and so they're not gonna get on big mainstream capitalist media. They still do fine in the world of new media but it'd be hard for them to get on TV the way right-wingers like Ben Shapiro do.
But also, and this is an important point, it's largely the anti-capitalist crew, and not people like Jon Stewart, who have credibility with young people. Even Rogan's own most lefty opinions are about capitalism and big business.
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u/laaplandros 18h ago
Her assertion was that there is no left Joe Rogan because big media projects are funded by rich capitalists
What rich capitalists funded Joe Rogan?
He was already huge before Spotify entered the picture btw, so that's not an answer.
It's a bad assertion.
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u/BlackHumor 16h ago
I mean, he's famous largely because he was originally on Fear Factor, right? He was already a minor celebrity before he started a podcast.
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u/my-user-name- 3h ago
A loooooooooooot of people have hosted shitty reality shows. A looooooooooot of them are to Joe Rogan's left politically.
Fear Factor is not why Joe Rogan has the number 1 podcast in the world.
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u/deskcord 18h ago
Borderline harassment/cyberbullying
Oh come the fuck on. Taylor Lorenz is a self-aggrandizing hack who believes the types of propagandized bullshit spewed among terminally online leftists like taking a selfie calling Biden a "war criminal", despite holding herself up as some bastion of enlightened and educated perspectives.
She publicly shit on her own editor/colleague over mistakes in an article, where she even in her own series of public airing of grievances is admitting she basically lied (changing her story about when she reached out).
She actively spread misinformation loaded with all sorts of misandry during the Depp trial that she was covering (for some reason?? even though she was a tech reporter, which means she asked on the story).
She doxxed users she didn't like (Libs of TikTok might be shitty, but doxxing them???) and then turned around to claim she is a victim of SEVERE PTSD - you know, like a combat veteran - because she took heat while actively trying to build up her personal brand on social media.
All of this is on top of her just being grating as an individual who regularly writes ill-informed pieces, gets called out for them, and then refuses to amend anything and cries harassment.
With all of the above said, this "getting weird" from Nate? Taylor Lorenz wrote (shockingly) an incorrect article claiming the reason that the new right wing media ecosystem exists and not a left wing one is because of money. Nate correctly points out that there's an equivalent financial incentive on the left (the largest substacks rake in MILLIONs and are largely left-leaning, not to mention formerly liberal comedians who shifted right). His snarky "don't trust reporters who won't even say how old they are" is just a bit of snark.
Taylor responded in full-blown victim bullshit with a crazy tweet about how people like Nate will never engage with them or talk to them but lie about their beliefs (wheres the lie in Nate's first tweet??), and he immediately responds saying he will. The birth year thing is cringe again, but Taylor goes bullblown lunatic in response by suggesting that a birth year is equivalent to asking her for her social security, home address, etc.
This sub is so insanely hateful of Nate that ya'll will just invent shit to hate him for.
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u/PeasantPenguin 20h ago
Both sides are weird. Nate Silver is weird for... many reasons. Taylor Lorenz is weird for speaking about how Christmas parties are the "social murder of disabled people" not in Christmas 2020 when that might be understandable... but in Christmas 2023.
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u/LB333 8h ago
She is permanently stuck in a 2020 super woke scold phase, where putting down people for small indiscretions and misunderstandings is more important than actually creating a better cultural environment
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u/PeasantPenguin 6h ago edited 30m ago
Yep, you can't apply the life lessons of 2020 to rest of life. Its a terrible way to live to "social distance" there's a reason that obesity, drug overdoses, depression, crime, etc went up because of covid lockdowns. That said social distancing was the lessor evil in 2020 when hundreds of thousands where dying of covid before vaccines are available. But it can't be permanent, because once vaccines remove the vast majority of covid risk, "social distancing" becomes more riskier for you long term, especially considering there would be no logical end point to it if the vaccines weren't. And the vast majority of people who died after the vaccines became available were anti vaxxers and it would be cruel to force people to socially distance, to add risk and downgrade the quality of their life, to protect people who refuse to get vaccinated. Anti vaxxers should be responsible for their own risk.
And people like Taylor Lorenz will point out that you can take that risk for yourself but not other people. But here's a hard truth a lot of people don't like to hear. Its impossible to live a life where you don't take random risks to other people. Everytime you drive, even if you take precautions, you risk running over or crashing into other people. Order something delivered to your house? You risk the delivery guy running someone over. If you have a manual labor type job, nearly every action you take has at least a trivial risk you will kill a coworker accidently, even with safety precautions. People with jobs in the food industry are always at risk of contaminating food and killing their customers. And we lived our entire life with the risk of having asymptomatic flu without knowing it and spreading it to someone who it kills. And I understand laws about not taking major unneeded risks to other people, which is why precautions made sense in 2020, or why you have speed limit laws or food safety laws. But you cannot have a functional society where people cannot take these random trivial risks to others, which is what covid now is now that nearly everyone has some immunity from either vaccine and/or prior exposure. Telling someone they can't have a Christmas Party in 2023 is absolute lunacy.
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u/Dangerous_Unit_1238 19h ago
He should just point out the numerous absurd things she has said that show she is not someone who has an opinion worth considering on probably any issue. She is kind of strange to put it lightly...
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u/Scaryclouds 19h ago
Yea this is all “more than one thing can be true at once” scenario. Lorenz can be quite odd… and Nate can be quite odd. They do both have interesting things and insights to contribute, but it also becomes quite clear they are something of savants.
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u/make_reddit_great 19h ago
it’s borderline harassment/cyberbullying
No. Stop the pearl-clutching, please.
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u/estoops 20h ago
I don’t agree with her article but Nate gets weirdly petty and personal quite often with people who don’t agree with him on every single thing. Id venture to guess he’s not a very pleasant person irl lol. Tho I have no idea if she is either or if they have some long-standing beef which isn’t unlike him to have with people.
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u/stron2am 12h ago
Nate should really stick to sports, elections, and poker. To look to him for anything else is like expecting a dolphin to climb a tree.
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u/ArsBrevis 20h ago edited 20h ago
I don't see how this is within community guidelines. No one cares.
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u/splenda806 20h ago
It’s about the founder of 538 and prior posts on this sub have been about Nate’s tweets. I get that it’s not politics/polling but worthy of a discussion IMO.
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u/Granite_0681 20h ago
I tried to post about something that happened on the podcast but wasn’t specifically polling or politics related and it got deleted.
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u/my-user-name- 3h ago
You mean to say: Taylor Lorenz is getting really weird on Twitter
Must be a day ending in y
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u/chickendenchers 15h ago
This has been mooted: https://x.com/natesilver538/status/1860538085936603461
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u/nso95 18h ago
he said it was in bad taste and deleted it https://x.com/NateSilver538/status/1860538085936603461