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Taylor Lorenz
American journalist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Taylor Lorenz (born 1984 or 1985[1]) is an American journalist and opinion columnist who covers Internet culture. She has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Business Insider, and The Daily Mail. In 2023, she published a book called Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet. In 2024, Lorenz left the Washington Post following an internal investigation after Lorenz posted an image on Instagram labeling president Joe Biden as a "war criminal". Lorenz subsequently began publishing a newsletter called User Mag as well as a podcast called Power User.
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Early life and education
Lorenz 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 in 2007.[3][4][5] Lorenz has said that the social media site Tumblr caused her to become interested in Internet culture.[6]
Career
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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".[7] 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.[1] 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] 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."[26] 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".[27][24][28] 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."[29][30]
2022–2024: The Washington Post
In March 2022, Lorenz left the Times and joined The Washington Post as a technology and online culture columnist.[31][5] 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.[32] Raichik claimed that Lorenz had doxxed her, though Lorenz countered that Raichik's identity had already been publicly available.[33][34] 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".[35] 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".[36] Lorenz later interviewed Raichik for an article in February 2024.[37]
In May 2022, Lorenz published a report in the Post about the Joe Biden administration "pausing" the newly created Disinformation Governance Board within the Department of Homeland Security. Lorenz described a campaign of online harassment and highly critical coverage from right-wing media outlets toward the board's director Nina Jankowicz, who would resign from the post shortly afterward.[38] In the article, Lorenz detailed how Jankowicz became the victim of attacks by online right-wing influencers and conservative media personalities, including threats of physical violence, and argued that Jankowicz was "set up to fail" by the administration, which was "unprepared to counteract a coordinated online campaign against her".[39]
In June 2022, the Post published an article by Lorenz about online influencers covering the Depp v. Heard trial. The article incorrectly stated that two YouTubers mentioned in the article had been contacted for comment, when only one had.[40] In a Twitter thread reviewed by Lorenz's editors and management of the Post, Lorenz stated that the error was due to a miscommunication with her editor.[20][41]
In December 2022, Twitter owner Elon Musk temporarily suspended Lorenz's Twitter account, with Musk tweeting that the suspension was for "prior doxxing action".[42] 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.[43]
In coverage of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, Lorenz highlighted social media influencers credentialed by the DNC, including stand-up comedian and content creator Elizabeth Booker Houston, whom she described as “a comedian and content creator with more than 250,000 followers on Instagram.”[44]
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.[45] Lorenz never published another article for The Post, which did not announce any findings of its investigation. In October 2024, she announced she was leaving the Post to start her own newsletter via Substack.[46][25] Lorenz told The New Yorker that her decision to leave the Post was not a direct result of the incident[25] and that "every single President that I've ever seen in my lifetime is a war criminal".[47]
2024–present: User Mag
In October 2024, Lorenz announced she was leaving The Washington Post to run a Substack publication called "User Mag".[48] 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."[49]
In 2025, it was announced that Lorenz would also contribute a column to Mehdi Hasan's Zeteo on the influence of Silicon Valley tech billionaires.[50]
In April 2025, following the killing of health insurance CEO Brian Thompson, during a CNN interview Lorenz described the lead suspect in the case Luigi Mangione as "morally good".[51] Lorenz stated: "To see these millionaire media pundits on TV clutching their pearls about someone stanning a murderer when this is the United States of America, as if we don't lionize criminals [and] stan murderers of all sorts, and we can give them Netflix shows". Lorenz's comments drew criticism, particularly from conservative politicians.[51][52]
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.[53] The book focused on various aspects of internet culture. Some platforms discussed in the book include mommy blogs, YouTube, and Vine.[54] 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.[55]
In February 2024, it was announced that Lorenz would be launching a podcast called Power User in partnership with Vox Media.[56] In December 2024, Semafor wrote an article which stated that her distribution partnership would not be renewed,[57] a claim that Lorenz denied, further clarifying that she retains full ownership of the show and is continuing to publish episodes independently.[58]
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As a target of harassment
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Lorenz has been the subject of online harassment, which multiple sources have described as coordinated or orchestrated.[59][60] According to the International Center for Journalists, such harassment often escalates following signals from political figures or media personalities. Commentators like Nina Jankowicz have characterized the abuse as indirectly incited through critical media coverage rather than explicit calls to action.[61]
Much of the harassment has originated from right-wing online spaces,[62][63] with The Independent noted that "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".[51] Lorenz has described the abuse as including graphic threats, doxing, stalking, and swatting, affecting both her and her family. Reports have highlighted that the tactics used against her reflect broader misogynistic patterns, both online and offline.[59][64][65][66]
Personal life
She described herself as a vegan in an interview with Zagat in 2020.[67] She has said she is immunocompromised in an interview for the Society of Professional Journalists' magazine Quill.[68]
Selected publications
- Lorenz, Taylor (October 3, 2023). Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7535-6079-2.
References
External links
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