Good morning!
This is Issue 63.2 of Digestable, your thrice-weekly mouthful of things happening in the world.
Today’s news, fermented:
Just two tidbits from me today, reporting from New Orleans, the stunning swampy spot I’ll be working from the next few days.
Today’s theme: bad male politicians.
Tr*mp attempted a coup. Now there are emails that prove it. In which emails about our former president’s attempt to refute the election results emerge.
Mediocre Men Have Failed New York, in which we are reminded that Cuomo’s pandemic heroism was just a tiny blip in a long history of patriarchy preventing the right people from serving the public as politicians. (Also, please click on this article to see the absolutely hilarious pic of our boy Andy taking a…sip? from an empty glass? What a metaphor.)
Here’s a swamp friend—a yellow-crowned night heron—on the prowl.
*Hot Goss*
Brought to you by the superb Latifah Azlan.
Trigger warning: discussions of s*icide
If you know me in real life, you'll know that I am, and always have been, a Very Online Person. Not only did I maintain a fairly popular blog all throughout high school, I also was Tumblr famous for a very short while and I co-curated one of the top Friday Night Lights fanpages on the site. I have overshared on the Internet since I was 14. There's no hope for me to think about my "privacy" because I've willingly waived that right for many years now. And still, still in spite of all of this, I have not once told anybody to k*ll themselves in service of being an Internet troll or for the sake of edgy Web humor the way fellow Very Online Person Chrissy Teigen has.
Let's back up for a moment. About a month ago, former starlet Courtney Stodden released a memoir about their experience as a victim of grooming and child abuse by their parents and creepy ass "actor" Doug Hutchison, whom Courtney was married to as a 16-year-old teenager in 2011. Doug was 50-years-old at the time of their marriage. Courtney filed for divorce in 2018 and in the years since, they have been very vocal about the abuse they suffered not only at Doug's hands, but also their parents, who essentially trafficked their child to this predator.
I remember the days of ~*Hot Goss*~ back when Courtney and Doug's marriage was first publicized. The tabloids were ruthless to Courtney. They were called every horrid name imaginable and were made the butt of every single joke on the Internet. Well, it turns out that unscrupulous gossip writers weren't the only people bullying Courtney at the time. As they made the rounds to promote their memoir, Courtney revealed in an interview with The Daily Beast that Chrissy, famed supermodel and lifestyle mogul, was one of the people who absolutely tore them to shreds. As in, Chrissy would not only publicly tweet about wanting Courtney to "take a dirt nap," but also privately message Courtney and tell them to k*ll themselves.
In the aftermath of these revelations, Chrissy released an "apology" in which she completely centered herself and characterized her actions as that of an "insecure, attention-seeking troll." Chrissy did the Chrissy thing that she does every couple of months and announced she was taking time away from the Internet only to come back even more insufferable than she was before. I think she was hoping people would forget about her unhinged harassment of people and children online. Unfortunately for her, Courtney wasn't the only person she told to die multiple times. Because fashion designer Michael Costello also came forward yesterday to talk about his own traumatic experience of being harassed, bullied, and demeaned by Chrissy -- to the point where it destroyed his career and mental health.
It doesn't help that Chrissy also published a Medium essay that is meant to be a reflection? acknowledgment? admission? apology? of everything that has come out (and might continue to come out) in the last few months. You can read it for yourself but again, it centers Chrissy's feelings and experiences, and downplays the seriousness of her actions and its impacts on the people she harassed so it all rings a bit narcissistic and hollow. The tone gives a very "I'm scared of losing my brand deals and sponsors" vibe rather than showing any genuine remorse for her bad behavior.
I'm just going to come out and say it. I've never been a fan of Chrissy Teigen and have always found her to be exceptionally insufferable. Homegirl does not possess the sense of humor that I believe she thinks she does to continuously be So Online all the time. But this? This is brutally cruel and she seriously needs help. And by help I mean she needs to actually just relinquish control of her social media accounts to a professional manager and satiate her need for validation elsewhere. Like, sis, you're married to John Legend and have a whole ass Billboard chart-topping song written about and dedicated to you (also insufferable btw, truly cannot stand that song). Just log on to your Spotify account and blast that shit on max volume if you're feeling a little low on affirmations for the day! It would certainly take less time, be less pathetic, and affect the mental health and wellbeing of less people than whatever it is you've been doing these last few years.