I know that outlets have a LOT of leeway when it comes to celebrities, but even so the current headline feels awful damn close to libel...

I was reading the Root article yesterday, and thinking to myself, “The A.V. Club is going to pick this up and be stupid about it, isn’t it?”

“Ellie Kemper voted today, participating in a process that used to bar Black people and women! She must be taken to task!"

“Is it possible I’m a moron? No, it’s every single one of my reader’s who’s out of touch.”

Especially since I’m pretty sure the official position of the AV Club (or Jezebel, certainly) is that 22-year old Monica Lewinsky was too young and impressionable to have consented to her relationship with Bill Clinton. . . 

Counterpoint: letting Twitter bullshit determine your articles is dumb.

Even the comments on The Root didn’t get on board with this story.

“Imagine if she’d joined the Army? It was segregated until 1948.”

Did you morons not even bother to check The Root article that covered this same non-issue? I get it, none of you are actual journalists, and have no integrity, and this is really big on Twitter and social media, but damn, you could have just not posted this and saved yourselves the humility maybe just this once. 

Change the false, slanderous headline. Ellie Kemper does not have a “racist past." She went to a ball when she was 19 years old. Be better.

There’s more black people at Veiled Prophet Ball than work at the AV Club

When I saw this trending on Twitter, I thought, “This is EXACTLY the type of story the current AV Club will write about without doing any work to put it into context.” So, yeah.

Kemper was 19 years old when she was selected to be the Queen Of Love And Beauty. At that age, teenagers are mature enough to know what they’re being part of.

“Cancel Culture” doesn’t really exist, bit if it did, it would be about people being taken to task and having their careers ruined for things they did 22 years ago, when they were dumb teenagers, probably under pressure from their families and peers, as part of an event with a racist past, that had started to show at…

When *some* people say “Cancel culture is a thing”, this is what they mean. Not the “it’s just consequence for your actions” kind of meaning.

Kemper was 19 years old when she was selected to be the Queen Of Love And Beauty. At that age, teenagers are mature enough to know what they’re being part of.

Was really hoping AVC wouldn’t report on this nonsense. But of course they did.

“here’s hoping she at least understands why people are upset over her participation in an event rooted in white supremacy”

You guys have printed a fair amount of extraordinarily weak outrage-seeking shit over the past couple years, but this might take the cake. I rate this clickbait seven “UGH”s out of a possible five.

While this event sounds like some serious True Detective Season 1-shit, I’m equally sure that the elites who surrounded Kemper as a child wouldn’t exactly have been telling her: “Hey, d’you want to join our racist parade to help take back the public stage from populist demands for social and economic justice and…