Why I No Longer Read Slate And Salon (Thought Catalog Is Healthier For Us)

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I’m as liberal as they come. Reading the Huffington Post is like hearing my own thoughts and beliefs filtered back in great grammar and pretty organized tabs. Colbert is my second language. The NYT is my sunday paper.

I get angered about civil rights and Westboro Baptist Church protests. I worry about Russia sparking WWIII and if my congressperson (the first muslim US rep in the country, holla) supports immigration reform.

All this to say, I am hyper engaged and an information junkie who is fully encamped in the far left of the spectrum, and my greatest disappointment with the ACA is that its inefficiencies mean I won’t see socialism implemented in the US in my lifetime.

And I love Thought Catalog.

If I want to read people who think like me–watch my TV, read my books, and expound sarcastic witty humor–I can peruse several prominent news sites. There is an endless market for me to read quality journalism that shares my same worldview. After years of loyalty to Slate and Salon and the Huffington Post, I’m bored.

These news sources, in mirroring my own beliefs, also mirror my own anxiety and fears. I don’t want to become more convinced that the world is going to end because we’ve elected a libertarian president OMG. I want, and I argue we all need, thoughtful or just any discussion on why our beliefs are tempered by someone else’s view on reality.

Right now, in our national discourse, everyone is SO CONVINCED that if their view on the world/politics/GMO labeling is not implemented RIGHT NOW society will collapse. Everything in the media is fear and colors and I am only 30 years old and can’t get an ulcer yet. Slow down.

Civilization is still here. People can hold differing opinions than me and I do not need to feel like someone else’s opinion threatens my ability to believe my own opinion. Media can be an agora, a town hall without also needing to be political action committee.

Let the “gym bros” publish here, because how else will I hear them? (Fringe benefit: I can date the gym bro and not feel judged by my society, and we can have attractive, rational children who see both sides of an argument.)

Let all the people talk, so we can all calm down for one goddamn minute.