https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/993840431040487424
“Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web.” So begins a New York Times op-ed about an “alliance of heretics” of the alt-right who aren’t present in the “mainstream conversation.” The author gave this mayonnaise collective a platform in the Paper of Record then subtitled the op-ed, “Should we be listening?” All of which suggests nobody is listening to people with lucrative pundit careers who are very much in the mainstream conversation, getting profiled in The New York Times and elsewhere.
So let’s get the obvious statements out of the way. Well-to-do pundits with speaking tours and national platforms (like the New York freaking Times) are not being “silenced.” Being ignored by some instead of being paid handsomely by all to give PowerPoint presentations is not a First Amendment violation. Spreading white supremacist nonsense isn’t edgy, and lovingly propping up an outmoded status quo isn’t brave, unique, or intellectual. It’s boring. They’re boring.
Folks on Twitter reacted to the op-ed with a fitting amount of mockery:
A bracing look at these bold, daring, iconoclastic thinkers with unconventional ideas like “multiculturalism is bad,” “feminism has gone too far,” “white men are the truly oppressed,” “Islam is also bad,” and “maybe minorities shouldn’t complain so much.” https://t.co/0vymcYv9ZM
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) May 8, 2018
Off to the Intellectual Dark Web where I can safely [checks notes] celebrate the existing power hierarchy, just like I do on the [checks notes again] speaking circuit.
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) May 8, 2018
Conservative ideas are so shunned by the contemporary American mainstream that you can only encounter them in out-of-the way corners, like the so-called "dark presidency," "dark Congress," and "dark Supreme Court"
— The Discourse Lover (@Trillburne) May 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/993834752045146112
— Your Communist Dad (@urcommunistdad) May 8, 2018
People also took an opportunity to introduce some other renegades of the intellectual dark web:
https://twitter.com/shujaxhaider/status/993856017887846400
https://twitter.com/owillis/status/993842747806244864
https://twitter.com/MrBrandonStroud/status/993857373981700102
https://twitter.com/briangaar/status/993862268235345920
make me a new york times columnist instead. i'll show you the real controversial opinions pic.twitter.com/4USI6daCqh
— leon (@leyawn) May 8, 2018
welcome to Thoughtrealm: Darkplace. will you be my guest in the forbidden arts of logic, or will you wake up in your bed and pretend this never happened…. pic.twitter.com/rL8t9jWXgS
— Lead Actor from Pixar’s Sodas (@ByYourLogic) May 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/HelloCullen/status/993869126526529537
IntellectualDarkWeb.jpg pic.twitter.com/rUFj5xaxtW
— Stephen Sajdak (@stephensajdak) May 8, 2018
Once marijuana is legalized and McGruff the Crime Dog is out of work, he'll become a right-wing blogger on the Intellectual Bark Web.
— Eric Szyszka (@ericszyszka) May 8, 2018
Welcome to the Intellectual Dark Web, m'lady pic.twitter.com/HuuYktHYJF
— Tom Kludt (@TomKludt) May 8, 2018
Many people pointed out that having a huge platform like The New York Times isn’t very “dark web” of them:
https://twitter.com/markpopham/status/993840318515728384
https://twitter.com/Buttockus/status/993859597659131904
Until now, I didn't realize how oppressed I am. I mean, sure, I get to write for the Times, am very well paid, and am invited to speak to audiences all over the world. But sometimes people criticize me and my ideas. Why, it's positively Stalinist! https://t.co/zj9yBuZ0WI
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) May 8, 2018
once again the violent mob of PC thugs have silenced me by writing a long profile of me and my friends in the paper of record taking my completely wild-ass opinions at face value
— mattie lubchansky (@Lubchansky) May 8, 2018
Wait so the Intellectual Dark Web is actually the NYT editorial page? This is even more confusing than all the fancy costumes and commentary about guillotines last night
— dcf (@journeymanhisto) May 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/historyinflicks/status/993958188851564545
https://twitter.com/ugh_who_cares/status/993861156833058817
i love going to the underground websites youtube and twitter to access the intellectual dark web
— leon (@leyawn) May 8, 2018
Just trying to imagine explaining the concept of the intellectual dark web to someone whose brain hasn't sopped up the poison of online like French bread in mussel broth
— Mike Tunison (@xmasape) May 8, 2018
Some people roasted the op-ed’s author, Bari Weiss:
Bari Weiss' entire schtick is pretending that unseen forces are preventing her and those like her from making the exact arguments that she's making, right now, in the exact venue where she's making them, right now https://t.co/i3LdocWzSg
— Stephen Silver (@StephenSilver) May 8, 2018
When you frame widely read far-right intellectuals as an oppressed minority in the NYT, that's called "Weiss-washing"
— Kelsey D. Atherton (@AthertonKD) May 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/993830158103703552
ok would the person who keeps saying “bari weiss” three times please stop
— shauna (@goldengateblond) May 8, 2018
And others pointed out some glaring omissions in the article or poked fun at some of the details or the people involved in it.
https://twitter.com/olivebrinker/status/993904946142699521
https://twitter.com/ugh_who_cares/status/993863798363688960
Ah yes, the Intellectual Dark Web pic.twitter.com/949Z4Ey4Wc
— Courtney Enlow (@courtenlow) May 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/Buttockus/status/993862347881037824
two out of three of these metaphors for "intellectual awakening" are in fact stories about a bored child escaping into a fantasy world. is this deliberate pic.twitter.com/v8VS1YhUuI
— flglmn (@flglmn) May 8, 2018
And others poked fun by making up fake quotes that aren’t much sillier than some of the real ones:
Stunning NYT op-ed on the bold thinkers of our era pic.twitter.com/zDqEbBv5G9
— Jason O. Gilbert (@gilbertjasono) May 8, 2018
Some people were understandably perturbed about tired reactionary ideas being portrayed as “intellectual” and cool.
Meet the renegades of the intellectual dark web:
-racist with a PhD
-racist millionaire
-racist mom
-racist with a podcast— Brandy Jensen (@BrandyLJensen) May 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/historyinflicks/status/993848689897689088
https://twitter.com/fivefifths/status/993832452820004865
If someone disagrees with you once, that's the most oppressive and anti-intellectual thing that can possibly happen. If a hundred people on Twitter disagree with you, why, that's true martyrdom.
— Danny Bowes (@bybowes) May 8, 2018
privilege is looking at the state of the world and somehow having so much spare outrage that you can afford to waste some on rich white people
— shauna (@goldengateblond) May 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/timcarvell/status/993907595009241089
While others found this whole dark web disappointing:
https://twitter.com/aRobertsg/status/993854951125286913
I remember when the Dark Web was the place where you could buy a human femur, no questions asked, not a place where a bunch of millionaires on YouTube bankrolled by Robert Mercer wondered if the Jews are the reason no woman will talk to them.
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) May 8, 2018
Meet the tedious renalgades of the intellectual dork web
— Vince Mancini (@VinceMancini) May 8, 2018
Nonetheless, some people could still see how this intellectual dark web could be used for their own benefit:
Logging on to the Dark Web to download the one Dilbert comic where he says “fuck”
— pixelatedboat aka “mr tweets” (@pixelatedboat) May 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/sheckyyoungman/status/993939550949916672