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Taylor Lorenz

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Taylor Lorenz
Lorenz in 2023
Born
New York City, U.S.
EducationUniversity of Colorado Boulder
Hobart and William Smith Colleges (BA)
Writing career
GenreJournalism
SubjectInternet culture

Taylor Lorenz is an American journalist who writes a Substack called User Mag. She was previously a columnist for The Washington Post, a technology reporter for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, and Business Insider, and social media editor for the Daily Mail. She is known for covering Internet culture. In 2023, she published a book called Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet. In 2024, she began hosting a podcast called Power User.

Early life and education

Lorenz was born in New York City,[1] and grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, attending nearby Greenwich High School.[2] She attended college at the University of Colorado Boulder and later transferred to Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where she graduated with a degree in political science.[3][4] Lorenz has said that the social media site Tumblr caused her to become interested in Internet culture.[5]

Career

According to The Caret, Lorenz's reporting frequently concerns "Silicon Valley venture capitalists, marketers and ... anyone curious about how the internet is shaping the ways in which humans express themselves and communicate".[6] Fortune named her to its "40 Under 40" list in 2020, saying that she has "cemented herself as a peerless authority" whose name became "synonymous with youth culture online" during her time at The Daily Beast and The Atlantic.[7] The same year, Adweek included her on its list of "Young Influentials Who Are Shaping Media, Marketing and Tech", saying that she "contextualizes the internet as we live it".[8] Reason magazine credited her with popularizing the term "OK boomer" in a story declaring "the end of friendly generational relations".[9]

Lorenz worked as a social media editor for the Daily Mail from 2011 to 2014, becoming its head of social media.[10] After a short stint writing for The Daily Dot in 2014,[11] she was a technology reporter for Business Insider from 2014 to 2017.[12] In 2017, she wrote briefly for The Hill's blog section,[13][14] and was assaulted by a counter-protester[15] while covering the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.[16] From 2017 to 2018, she worked as a technology reporter for The Daily Beast.[17] In 2019, she was a visiting fellow at Harvard University's Nieman Foundation for Journalism where she studied how Gen Z interacts with news on Instagram.[18]

2019–2022: The New York Times

From 2019 to 2022, she was a technology reporter for The New York Times.[19] According to TheWrap, "since her time at the Times, she's attracted an inordinate amount of online criticism, particularly from those in the right-wing media".[20] While at the Times, she broke the story that the Bloomberg 2020 presidential campaign was paying Instagram meme accounts to post ads in the form of fake direct messages on the platform, a strategy that a Bloomberg spokesperson said may be new to presidential politics.[21][22]

In 2021, while working for The New York Times, Lorenz posted on social media in support of International Women's Day and discussed online harassment she had faced while urging others to support women going through similar experiences. Subsequently, Tucker Carlson criticized her in a segment discussing “powerful people claiming to be powerless” on his Fox News show, which led to further harassment.[23][24][25] Glenn Greenwald would also issue criticism towards Lorenz' statement, while dismissing her claims of harassment as online insults.[26][27] Writing in the First Amendment Law Review, professor Lili Levi noted "that this kind of publicity is effectively a call to arms for further harassment by members of Carlson’s audience."[28] The New York Times and the International Women's Media Foundation both issued statements in support of Lorenz that condemned the actions of Carlson, with The New York Times stating, "Lorenz is a talented New York Times journalist doing timely and essential reporting. Journalists should be able to do their jobs without facing harassment", and calling Carlson's actions a "cruel and calculated tactic".[29][24][30] Both Fox News and Carlson would release statements defending Carlson's criticism of Lorenz, with Fox News stating, "No public figure or journalist is immune to legitimate criticism of their reporting, claims or journalistic tactics."[31][32]

2022–2024: The Washington Post

In March 2022, Lorenz left the Times and joined The Washington Post as a technology and online culture columnist.[3][33] In April 2022, Lorenz wrote an article for the Post that publicized the identity of Chaya Raichik as the owner of the far-right Twitter account Libs of TikTok. The details were retrieved from early iterations of the account, as well as previous reporting.[34] Raichik criticized Lorenz, saying that Lorenz doxxed her, though Lorenz countered that Raichik's information had already been publicly available.[35][36] According to The Times of London, "supporters of Lorenz meanwhile pointed out that Raichik's followers were only too enthusiastic about doxing when it came to teachers being smeared as paedophiles".[37] In a tweet, Lorenz said that her "whole family was doxed again this morning ... trolls have now moved on to doxing and stalking any random friends I've tagged on Instagram".[38] Lorenz later interviewed Raichik for an article about Libs of TikTok in February 2024.[39]

In May 2022, Lorenz published a report in the Post about coordinated attack campaigns against Nina Jankowicz,[40][41] who was to lead the Disinformation Governance Board for the Department of Homeland Security. The Disinformation Board -- which was created to protect national security by advising other government agencies on how to combat disinformation, malinformation, and misinformation online -- was paused, and eventually disbanded after Jankowicz resigned due to the attack campaigns she endured.[42] In the article, Lorenz detailed how Jankowicz became the victim of attacks by right-wing internet influencers and media personalities, received violent threats, and that she was "set up to fail by an administration that was unsure of its messaging and unprepared to counteract a coordinated online campaign against her."

In June 2022, the Post published an article by Lorenz about the eco-system of online content creators and influencers covering the Depp v. Heard trial. The article incorrectly said that two YouTubers mentioned in passing in the article had been contacted for comment, when the Post later reported that only one had been before publication,[43] although this is disputed by both YouTubers.[44] Ultimately, after editorial corrections were made, the Editor's Note on the article acknowledged that only one of the creators had been contacted before publication, and that stealth editing had occurred against the paper's policy but that Lorenz did not make the stealth edit. In a tweet thread agreed upon by Lorenz, her editors, and Post management, Lorenz stated that the errors were due to a miscommunication with her editor.[20][45][46]

In December 2022, Twitter owner Elon Musk temporarily suspended Lorenz's Twitter account, with Musk tweeting that the suspension was for "prior doxxing action".[47] Lorenz said she was suspended after asking Musk for comment on a story. The suspension followed a series of suspensions of journalists under Musk's new ownership of Twitter.[48]

In August 2024, the Post began an internal investigation for evidence of bias after Lorenz shared an image on a private Instagram story depicting President Joe Biden with the caption "war criminal :(", referencing a meme criticizing the president for his support of Israel in the Gaza war.[25] Lorenz initially denied making the post, and later said that a friend created the captioned picture, which Lorenz shared. According to NPR, four people with direct knowledge of the post confirmed its authenticity.[49] Lorenz never published another article for The Post, which did not announce any findings of its investigation. In October 2024, she left the paper to focus on her own ventures.[50][25]

2024–present: User Mag

In October 2024, Lorenz announced she was leaving The Washington Post to run a Substack publication called "User Mag".[51] Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie told The Hollywood Reporter that she is an "accomplished reporter with deep experience covering internet trends and culture" whom the platform thinks "will thrive...with the direct support of her audience."[52]

In 2025, it was announced that Lorenz would also contribute a column to the Substack page Zeteo on the influence of Silicon Valley tech billionaires.[53]

Other works

In October 2023, her book Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet was published by Simon & Schuster.[54] The book focused on various aspects of internet culture. Some platforms discussed in the book include mommy blogs, YouTube, and Vine.[55] Lorenz discussed how influencers struggled to monetize their content and how prominent women such as Julia Allison are often the targets of online harassment and misogyny.[56]

In February 2024, it was announced that Lorenz would be launching a podcast called Power User in partnership with Vox Media.[57] In December 2024, Semafor wrote an article which stated that her distribution partnership would not be renewed,[58] a claim that Lorenz denied, further clarifying that she retains full ownership of the show and is continuing to publish episodes independently.[59]

Target of harassment

Lorenz has been the subject of online harassment, often used as a tactic to attempt to discredit her reporting and skills as a journalist.[60][61] The harassment has been referred to as being coordinated by some, with Nina Jankowicz, stating in an interview "This is clearly coordinated harassment; not in the sense of a Twitter account saying, 'Go attack Taylor Lorenz.' It’s just a diatribe that’s happening on television that’s then sending people toward her."[62] The International Center for Journalists also referred to the harassment as being "increasingly orchestrated or coordinated", noting "swarms of abusers often attack when political actors, high-profile misogynists or partisan journalists issue cues to ‘brigade’ or ‘dogpile’ an individual woman journalist," while discussing the harassment she had encountered following her International Women's Day post on social media.[61]

Lorenz has been a target of harassment and abuse from the right.[63][64] The Independent wrote: "Lorenz is a regular target of attacks from the right online, with comments she makes frequently blowing up and feeding an arguably disingenuous outrage culture, so much so that she has been called 'the most harassed technology journalist in America' and her career recommended for study to fellow reporters."[65]

Lorenz has stated that harassment included graphic rape and death threats, doxings, and threats against her family members.[60][66][67] According to Lorenz, she has also faced offline harassment including being stalked, as well as both her and her family having been the victims of swatting.[67][68] The tactics and language that have been used to target Lorenz "mirrors classic misogynistic tropes, and the kind of attitudes associated with offline violence against women, including digital manifestations of gaslighting."[61]

Personal life

Lorenz wearing a silver sequin mask.
Lorenz regularly wears a facial mask in public, citing autoimmune issues.[49]

Lorenz announced her engagement to Christopher Mims, a technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal, in January 2015.[69] She identified herself as a vegan in 2022.[70] She has said in interviews that she is immunocompromised.[71]

Selected publications

  • Lorenz, Taylor (October 3, 2023). Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780753560792.

References

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  58. ^ Tani, Max (December 8, 2024). "Taylor Lorenz and Vox are parting ways". Semafor. Retrieved December 9, 2024.
  59. ^ Lorenz, Taylor [@TaylorLorenz] (December 9, 2024). "This is false & there's no "deal" bc I own my podcast 100% outright, all the IP and distribute it myself through YouTube. Nothing about this story is true. Max Tani at Semafor misled people and now ppl think my show was cancelled or something. It's not! Vox continues to be great" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
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  71. ^ Spike, Carlett (April 21, 2023). "10 with Taylor Lorenz". Quill. Archived from the original on November 15, 2023. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
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