Reluctant thread:

Several weeks ago, I pitched this exact story to Vox, and they took it. While writing the draft, I realized that I wanted to analyze the political implications of this phenomenon from a radical/leftist perspective. https://twitter.com/terrygtnguyen/status/1293536261756641282

I wrote the story, showed it to the editor, and because I’d written something explicitly leftist and because Vox is...Vox, we very amicably parted ways.

So you can imagine my shock when Vox published this story from a staff writer that not only shares the exact topic, but also uses several of the images I curated for my version of the story!

To be clear, Vox is fully within its rights here. This is not plagiarism, it’s just exploitative and an all around shitty thing to do. I sort of blame myself, because if I hadn’t given the story a radical framing.

But that’s who I am, and more importantly, that’s what makes my stories interesting. So I don’t regret pulling it, even though this really sucks to see. ANYWAY: editors, if you’re interested in reading about the political implications of this from a leftist perspective, hit me up

(Also to be clear, I don’t blame the staff writer, who wasn’t part of the edit process for my version of the story, and for all I know had no idea about any of this!)