Taylor Lorenz Refuses to Breathe

OK, that may be a BIT of hyperbole on my part, but only a bit. 

Our favorite ambiguously-aged, terminally online, and the butt of all jokes, Taylor Lorenz, is still lecturing us all on how awful we are to be breathing air that is shared freely with other human beings. 

Not a people person then?

— DickensianDreams (@DickensianD) December 3, 2024

For some reason, we can’t help but be fascinated by her, which is how she remained at The Washington Post so long after her sell-by date. Reporter after reporter was let go by the Post, but Lorenz hung on until the bitter end, only leaving after posting a photo of her at the White House that labeled President Biden a “War Criminal.” She wasn’t exactly fired after that, but she left to spend more time doing her own thing. 

It’s ironic that it took an Instagram post to get Taylor off the payroll of the Post. She had lied on the pages of the Post and suffered no consequences despite deeply embarrassing the paper with the public. This, though, is not a journalistic sin; insulting power is. 

The point is not that Taylor Lorenz is crazy. She has always been crazy. The point is Taylor Lorenz was the LEADING JOURNALIST IN AMERICA when it came to Internet trends, the two leading newspapers in the US fought over her, and she was just as crazy then, and they didn’t care.

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) December 3, 2024

Taylor is now doing her own thing, which is podcasting and a Substack blog, and more power to her. Anything that keeps her in the public eye is a good thing in my book, as she is a source of endless entertainment. 

Now usually, I would avoid making fun of the obviously mentally ill, but that is Taylor’s whole shtick, and it has brought her far. She prances around on social media, attracting attention and chastising the rest of us for “rawdogging” the air we breathe. 

Hanging out at the Taylor Lorenz book party. pic.twitter.com/5UncM0wLpY

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 2, 2024

I mean, how precious is it that Taylor is going out to promote a book while simultaneously complaining that infection vectors–i.e. people–have the nerve to show up and breathe? Most authors would kill to have people show up to purchase their book and get it signed, but poor Taylor has to endure breathing the air along with the hoi polloi. 

Exclusive footage from @TaylorLorenz COVID-prepared book reading. pic.twitter.com/r1BDogFfXW

— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) December 3, 2024

How dreadful! 

She goes so far as to insult everybody else who isn’t insane, and in the case of her readers, I suspect they lap it up. They are, after all, the same type of person who enjoys shelling out thousands to attend a Race2Dinner hatefest. 

Glenn Greenwald captured my feelings about Lorenz perfectly, and explains better than I why I feel a public square with Taylor in it is funnier than one without. 

When Taylor Lorenz was on the NYT and WP front page, many earnestly denounced her “journalism.”

But it’s been clear for awhile that, above all, she’s high camp: an unapologetic caricature of neurotic old-millennial liberals who dominate online punditry. She’s borderline iconic: https://t.co/Mt8gpU72H7

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 3, 2024

She is, for all her flaws, extremely entertaining.