"Your are the media now!"

The media continues its spiral after the election

"Your are the media now!" That’s what what right-wing voices declared on Tuesday after Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential race against Kamala Harris. They spent years eroding legacy institutions and calling every critical remark against Trump “fake news”. Then Elon Musk bought Twitter (now X) for $44 billion and turned it into a hellscape of bots, conspiracy theories and alt-right bros who buy blue verification checks—which were once reserved for public figures and journalists—and spread whatever misinformation they want. In fact, they’re incentivized financially to do so.

But let’s not only blame the right. In an attempt to appear cool and not as out of touch elites, the left has also given in to the contentification of media. Yes, Kamala Harris sat down with legitimate journalists but what got more publicity was her talking to the Call Her Daddy podcast and deciding not to go on The Joe Rogan Show. In reality, I doubt either of those listener bases did (or would have) voted for her.

I’ve seen my industry degrade for some time. Hip-hop media used to be venerated publications like Vibe and The Source. There was salaciousness and gossip of course, but there were also people who genuinely loved hip-hop and wanted to spotlight, document and challenge it. For the past five or so years, I’ve watched hip-hop media spiral into a chaos of men screaming into mics. Established platforms are dead. Legitimate journalists have been laid off.

The new rules are misogyny and disinformation. It’s a race to the bottom for clicks. Whoever can create the soundbite, ideally first and loudest, is the winner.

Women are there as eye candy, if at all. Mostly, they’re punching bags and the punchline to the jokes. If you need any proof of this, watch the new Megan Thee Stallion documentary, which is in fact an indictment on the toxic hip-hop manosphere as much as it is on Tory Lanez.

Fans can’t tell the difference. Artists don’t care. This generation prefers to be soft-balled by their bros or some random celebrity posing as a journalist instead of speaking to an actual critic. And you wonder why the music is palpably worse?

So what’s the future? If hip-hop is any harbinger for society at large, expect things to get worse before they get better.