"a strange sort of journalist who could only exist in this time period"
January 9, 2018 12:32 PM   Subscribe

Feinberg says that she would love, above all else, to “catch Donald Trump Jr. stealing valor,” the act in which a civilian poses fraudulently as a member or veteran of the armed forces. “Don Jr. humiliating himself in general is a good story,” she deadpans. Feinberg has also been scraping the internet, in vain, for the digital slime trail of Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner, who, she says, don’t have any sort of online presence, “which seems impossible given their age,” she tells me. “It’s driven me nuts.”
The Columbia Journalism Review profiles Ashley Feinberg. posted by Navelgazer (22 comments total) 35 users marked this as a favorite
 
Gah! Meant to say it’s by Matthew Kassel!
posted by Navelgazer at 12:42 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


A list of Memories from her coworkers at Deadspin (NSFW!)

Oh boy, is it ever. Seriously, folks, even now some things can't be unseen.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:51 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


I almost posted this a few minutes ago! The kind of journalism she's conducting is invaluable for this particular time in history, though it would have been scoffed at ten years ago. (She's a good Twitter follow, also.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:56 PM on January 9, 2018 [6 favorites]


Are we sure she's not a Mefite?
posted by orrnyereg at 1:07 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


“which seems impossible given their age,”

It's not that unusual for very rich people.
posted by Miko at 1:16 PM on January 9, 2018 [4 favorites]


She makes me wish I was at least a little bit more fearless.
posted by redsparkler at 1:36 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


The most amazing thing about that Deadspin piece is learning that there is actually someone named "Hudson Hongo."
posted by octobersurprise at 1:54 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


“She uses the weapons of the troll for the forces of good.”

Just like Buffy!
posted by Strange Interlude at 2:03 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


Only thing about the FB one is that FB's platform and content selection itself can encourage some of those "creepy" behaviors. For instance, I've gotten notifications of life events in my notifications and gotten presented with posts in my feed to interact with as if they were fresh that were years out of date. Who knows how often I may have accidentally interacted with them not noticing they were out of date. That starts to get into the corrupt personalization problem. Like most people, I just let FB show me stuff to interact with according to whatever its criteria for selection are. Do other people actually go out and browse other people's walls, albums, and profiles routinely or something? Anyway, also don't approve of harrassment as entertainment in any form but then I'm a humorless killjoy.
posted by saulgoodman at 2:07 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


“That’s how Ashley says ‘hi,’ ” Craggs tells me affectionately. “With a Shrek dick.”

2018, everyone!

I've really enjoyed some of Feinberg's work in the past few years. But this just now brings me to recall what I think of often -- there was a time not so long ago when things weren't just so god damn weird. Of course there was weirdness, there always has been, and thank God for it. But before, say, sometime in the early 2000s, you could go for days or even weeks at a time without having occasion to say to yourself what the Christ is this?

I'm not complaining, just observing. Feinberg is ideally suited for the days of the Great Enweirdening. I used to think I was, too, but I'm not so sure.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:24 PM on January 9, 2018 [12 favorites]


(writing to emphasize per Halloween Jack that the NSFW warning on the "A list of Memories from her coworkers at Deadspin" link is, I feel, insufficient for the amount of popular-cartoon-character genitals that you are going to see there)
posted by Countess Elena at 2:29 PM on January 9, 2018 [3 favorites]


insufficient for the amount of popular-cartoon-character genitals that you are going to see there

There’s a MLPDP pictured.

No, really.
posted by chavenet at 2:37 PM on January 9, 2018


Her creepy Facebook article is a hilarious classic.
posted by noxperpetua at 2:37 PM on January 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


Feinberg is ideally suited for the days of the Great Enweirdening

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
posted by octobersurprise at 2:40 PM on January 9, 2018 [12 favorites]


There are four occasions in a person's life that cannot be improved by an Unexpected Masturbating Shrek.

Science has not identified any of them yet.
posted by delfin at 3:45 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


At first I read her name as Feinstein and it was so weird
posted by oceanjesse at 4:35 PM on January 9, 2018


At first I read her name as Feinstein and it was so weird.

I'm so glad I was not the only one..
posted by mkhall at 6:35 PM on January 9, 2018


It's not that unusual for very rich people.

It's not, so I buy that Kushner doesn't have much of an online history, but Miller doesn't come from some super-rich family does he? I thought they were more just "well off"? I find it hard to believe that an attention-seeking know-it-all teen who was socially isolated from his peers didn't spend a lot of high school online.
posted by retrograde at 7:01 PM on January 9, 2018 [4 favorites]


The Facebook article really struck a chord. I rarely use my Facebook account, but I have a "friend" who seems to interact with my account in many of the same ways Ashley suggests. Commenting on posts from YEARS ago. Tagging herself in photos in which she does not appear. Commenting on things at random. Being new to Facebook and having maybe 13 friends, I thought that was how it was done. After five years on Facebook I know better, and I feel like maybe I shouldn't have taken that behavior as my model on that platform. Oh, well. Too late now!
posted by Floydd at 7:03 PM on January 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


Well I regularly misinterpret her name as Leslie Feinberg, which is likewise disorienting.
posted by latkes at 6:33 AM on January 10, 2018


Miller doesn't come from some super-rich family does he?

I didn't know as much about him. This article, "From Hebrew School to Halls of Power: Stephen Miller's Unlikely Journey" by Eitan Arom, suggests that we was solidly upper-middle-class growing up, but I agree not the super-rich level of some of the others in the 45 gang.
His mother, Miriam, who came to Los Angeles as a social worker, grew up in the well-to-do Glosser family of New Deal Democrats in Johnstown, Pa. Her grandparents were Eastern European immigrants. Stephen’s father, Michael, is a Stanford-trained lawyer who pivoted into real estate management. Peers described the elder Miller as a Jewish community leader, who served in board posts for a number of philanthropic organizations, including on the national board of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) and the board of directors of The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. Together the couple owns and operates a real estate investment company that controls 2,500 residential units from Pico Rivera to Valley Village.
The article is worth reading. The pizza story is gold.

For him, graduating when he did, it's a little stranger to be a ghost online. But even today I know plenty of people with a minimal footprint, especially people who knew early early on they were going to be political beasts and intentionally did not leave much out there to be found.
posted by Miko at 10:51 AM on January 10, 2018


I follow her on twitter and she's been like a single shining ray of light these last couple of years (ymmv)
posted by stagewhisper at 5:36 PM on January 11, 2018


« Older Victorio Peak: New Mexico's El Dorado, C.I.A....   |   Colored divider bars add a graphic touch without... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments