Earlier this week Kevin Williamson claimed that New York Magazine didn’t “do” real journalism (great verb choice there, my man) because they refused to print his essay detailing his REAL THOUGHTS on how women who have abortions should be treated. And oh, then we waited, with the opposite of bated breath, to see what sucker website WOULD take his so, so obvious bait and say, “heck, this will give us a few clicks, we’ll publish that shit.” And oh look, here comes the Washington Post! The article is, predictably, garbage, but what strikes us so much about Williamson’s writing (gah now that we’ve had to swim through the muck so much in what’s supposed to pass as brilliant conservative thought) is just how obviously it screams “I AM DESPERATELY TRYING TO SHOW YOU HOW SMART AND SLY I AM!”
I mean, Kevin Williamson uses logical fallacies so much you’d think this was effing Julius Caesar. He starts one sentence “ As someone who can count,” as if we’d all be like “Oh man, you got me, I can count so now I HAVE to agree with you.” He begins another paragraph “Abortion is an absolute evil,” and like, bro, we ALREADY knew you were a hysterical mess, you don’t have to bring it home like this. But honestly, he’s so far up his own ass that we also believe he would write “Me not getting published is an absolute evil” or “Me having to listen to a woman talk for two minutes is an absolute evil” or “Me having to try to engage empathetically with another human being is an absolute evil.”
We honestly will prob have to keep writing about this guy forever, because publications will just keep hiring him to write this nonsense forever. But honestly (to copy a great analogy from a great female writer) this kind of writing is the literary equivalent of manspreading… wait actually, that’s too nice even, it’s the literary equivalent of jerking it on the subway and making everyone watch.
To everyone reading this, just rejoice in the fact that you are definitely, definitely, a billion times smarter than Kevin Williamson.
And if you want to read a great take on his nonsense article, we liked what Amanda Marcotte said on Twitter a lot.