By Kyle Smith
Sunday, September 27, 2020
Hello and welcome to the final stage of the hiring process at Vox! (Motto: Making Gen Z a little dumber since 2014). If you’ve made it this far, only one stage awaits you before you can join our crew of budding public intellectuals so that you, too, can be paid to state with absolute metaphysical certainty assertions that are dubious, false, or moronic. With any luck, you, too, will soon be able to help burn through our wad of VC cash while telling our base of young-adult readers there is a bridge from Gaza to the West Bank, dogs should be citizens, the American Revolution was a mistake, and even offering health advice, as we did last winter when we said to readers, “Is this going to be a deadly pandemic? No.”
Okay, one of those stories I just mentioned was a joke; we’ve got a really mischievous sense of humor around here, you know! Guess which one?
Write your answer in this space: ___________________________________
Passing this edit test will secure you a job offer, a Slack logon, a union membership card (just like the Teamsters!), an invitation to our two-drinks-per-staffer nondenominational Winter Solstice party and an eight-by-ten glossy of Ezra Klein frowning sagely into the middle distance.
As you know, Vox dot com is a select group of spoiled rich kids who turned Marxists, in some cases without even attending Oberlin. But it’s not just that. Karl Marx, after all, never chanted, “Black Lives Matter” while setting fire to a gas station in a black neighborhood. Vox has passed beyond Marxism to a higher plane of social consciousness in which we work to advance trans-friendliness, anti-racism, and feminism; extol all existing, proposed, and as-yet-undreamed-of government bureaucracies, programs, and agencies as the go-to solutions for solving social ills (duh!); and passionately (as well as compassionately!) denounce power, profit, and privilege. All while living off our trust funds in America’s trendiest neighborhoods. And cashing checks from China, of course.
We aren’t just an outlet for moronic Scientology recruitment videos supporting lies-based Democratic Party propaganda. No, we join the struggle to build a better world in which not only will every man who works up the courage to invite a woman to meet for drinks feel a cold spike of fear at what she might allege about his behavior later, but every Starbucks will provide free cat-o’-nine-tails so that all white people can ritually scourge themselves in front of other socially conscious white people while waiting to pick up our pumpkin-spice Frappuccinos. (Our branding arm is in fact working on a licensing agreement to make this happen right now. Watch this space!)
Now onto the quiz. But first, an advisory: None of those stories we suggested might be a joke earlier was, in fact, a joke. If you filled in anything in the blank space provided, don’t even bother continuing. You’re disqualified. (Progressivism is serious business! Do you not take it seriously?)
Our little quiz is multiple choice, and the idea is to find out if you have what it takes to join Vox’s staff of world-class experts not yet old enough to rent a car. Just circle the letters that will make for a top-flight Vox article. Ready? Good luck. Oh, friendly word of advice? If you do join our staff, remember not to ever say “You guys,” or you’re fired.
Here’s the test. You have 30 seconds. So don’t think. Feel.
When we look back at the institution of:
1. America
2. Education
3. Lite FM
4. Dodgeball
5. Apple pie
6. Laughter
The most striking thing about it is how its roots were nourished in the fertile soil of:
1. Misogyny
2. White nationalism
3. Classism
4. White supremacy
5. Elitism
6. Racism
We know this because:
1. Adam Smith
2. Tim Allen
3. Mitt Romney
4. Drew Brees
5. Frank Sinatra
6. Mel Gibson
Liked it, or probably liked it, or would have liked it. Does it really matter? What is indisputable is that each of these avatars of whiteness and cis-hetero maleness advanced, in his own pernicious way, the goals of whiteness and cis-hetero maleness, just like:
1. The Ku Klux Klan
2. The American Nazi Party
3. Donald Trump
4. Big Ten Football
5. Fascism
6. Greed-based capitalism
For too long, these latent ties have gone unnoticed, but going forward, making the world a better and more just place will therefore require:
1. Systematic dismantling of power structures
2. Scientific uprooting of established hierarchies
3. Methodical destruction of reigning orthodoxies
4. Persnickety blowing-up of dominant dominators
5. Meticulous reconceptualizations of authority enforcers
6. Punctilious annihilation of controlling organizations
Bzzt! Time’s up.
Our instantaneous-grading software shows you left one or more answers uncircled. Sorry, candidate! No one said you had to circle just one option. All of the above options are correct, and if you didn’t circle something, you’re just not thinking expansively enough to be Vox material. Try a less progressive organization, such as Daily Kos.
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