Thread by @jnajefferson, Welp here we go...This is why you’ll never see me claiming Vibe [...]

Welp here we go...

This is why you’ll never see me claiming Vibe Magazine in any capacity. https://twitter.com/jnajefferson/status/1274713522090491905

https://twitter.com/jnajefferson/status/1274713522090491905

So, I was hired as an intern in 2015, and ended up freelancing and permalancing until I was hired full time in 2018. I THOUGHT that things would get better for me there after being hired full time but

no ma’am.

I think I started noticing things weren’t as I thought they were sometime around 2017. I noticed that, although the female to male staffer ratio was not evenly distributed, the men at Vibe were always able to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

Even though women were more or less running the site and bringing the numbers, we were often falling victim to our EIC’s “passionate” (

) speeches telling us that we could be better, which DID involve us being cursed at from time to time.

There have been moments where my coworkers were yelled at to the point where they left the office. But that wasn’t even the half of it.

The managing editor/whatever title she has now, who more or less was in charge since the EIC was always off being an influencer (for his personal brand, not always for the betterment of the site), would passive-aggressively bully the female members of the team.

If you were younger, had a lower title, or did not ass-kiss, your ranking on a (very obvious) pecking order was lower, which meant you were subjected to different treatment... such as...

-different rules and ultimatums (no press trips UNLESS I wrote the pieces and had them up as soon as I returned)

-early morning shifts (When I lived in NJ and commuted I had to wake up at 5:15 just to get to the office by 8. Mind you, I didn’t have benefits.)

Going back to the press trip thing: there was a “freeze” on press trips at one point, but certain writers were able to go on them, often without being forced to write about the events in an expedient fashion.

I was also threatened to be fired twice during 2018. Once because I asked if I could pitch a piece to our sister site (which was allowed, per this email:)

Mind you, all of this was happening and I was still:

-Cranking out 4+ news articles a day and consistently bringing in viewership to the site
-ran a podcast that I didn’t even want to have on their platform in the first place
-was commuting from a different state.

However...

That didn’t stop me from being baited by my editors into attending my “you are being laid off meeting.” Baited meaning: my EIC said that *we* had a 1-on-1, and *we* did not. In fact, it’s been 9 months and I’ve never heard from either Datwon or Christine.

I was also purged out of Vibe’s social handles days before I was laid off, although I was working at an event and wanted to update things to our socials. I, like my coworkers, wrote, ran socials at a point, and did way more than I was treated and paid for.

Sorry, my brain is all over the place, but jumping back to the men being coddled. There is a male writer I was hired alongside who was involved in a personally traumatic situation that the EIC and EE kept from the team for a year. He was still employed despite not working.

But if *any* of the women were minutes late to meetings, to the office, to writing a news story, we were automatically pinged, emailed, called asking what’s going on.

Do you see the disparity?

But if *any* of the women were minutes late to meetings, to the office, to writing a news story, we were automatically pinged, emailed, called asking what’s going on.Do you see the disparity?

I was once asked to log in two hours of vacation time for a DOCTORS APPOINTMENT.

But this coworker had a job waiting for him for a year, didn’t know when he’d return, and we had to be there at all times.

It was exhausting.

As I do on here, I often talked about how things weren’t fair. But it was me speaking truth to power that they didn’t like because they never wanted to be wrong. So because of this, I was low low low on the pecking pole.

I was told by a few people that if one of my other female coworkers had stayed with the company a little longer, we would have both gotten axed.

Meaning that my “lay off” was more or less done personally, not because of restructuring.

It is disheartening to see that so many black women are not treated fairly at these publications. But it hurts so much worse when it’s black women being mistreated by their own community and their own publication.

I’ve always known that I’d end up saying something, but for the most part, I just believed that whatever was supposed to happen would happen to Vibe. I think ending up as a skeleton of the brand it once was because of poor leadership and treatment is karma enough.

I brought this up to HR after I was laid off (because *surprise surprise,* I was not given the privilege of an exit interview with the company upon my lay-off.) but I had been writing down incidents since 2018.

now you all know that people aren’t all they’re cracked up to be in this industry, black women are constantly mistreated, and I probably just ruined my damn future in this industry by saying things about a legacy publication and legacy editor.

But something has got to give.

Omg WOW-completely forgot about the time that I got death threats and for a news article, and for H O U R S, I told Christine I needed help to edit the post. She said nothing.

I got home and THEN she told me “maybe we could have swapped out the photo or changed the headline.”

And I guarantee you, the reason she said nothing is because the numbers were bangin’ all day. I told her for six hours straight that I was getting threatened. And nothing.

And the gag is, she was the one who told me to write the piece in the first place.

So thanks!!! Hope the numbers were worth it!!!

Damn also forgot about the time in 2019 where I was the only writer at the office until 11 am, so I asked the intern to write one of her pitches and I’ll edit/put up while we waited for people to show up.

Clearly a mistake on my part trying to be of service.

I was thanked in Slack by Christine and then told I need to “know my place” as a staff writer, and I am not allowed to edit the interns.

One of my goals is to be an editor at a publication, but how am I to get any experience if I’m chastised for helping someone?

I’m not sure if the poor treatment had to do with my age/abilities, but something that I noticed was that the youngest members of the team were treated the worst. I was 24 when I was hired, and one of my (now best friends) had just turned 25.

And then of course, I wasn’t compromising my morals to get ahead. I pointed out issues with the content, us not knowing our audience clearly enough to pinpoint what content would fare best on the site, and issues with the treatment and leadership.

I guess, big mistake.

And you know what they always said was the issue?

My tone.

Sound like a familiar conversation?

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