- Joined
- Nov 18, 2019
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- 113
I stumbled across an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today called Who Pays on the First Date? No One Knows Anymore, and It’s Really Awkward. I figured it could spark some interesting discussions here and that I could share my process for going through online pieces like this.
My process is pretty simple:
Here's how I went through the steps on the Wall Street Journal Article:
Skim through some of the other articles that the author has written
It's decently written from a technical perspective. The author does a good job of providing a wide array of view points from college aged gals to 30 something year old lawyers to our very own Chase Amante. However, when reading the piece you get the feeling that it was written by women for women. She sprinkles the piece with stories of awkward situations where a lady had to unjustifiably pay for meal on a date. She does this subtly, but I feel most guys would take see those anecdotes and conclude that they should default to offering to pay unless their date insists they split the bill. Whether or not that was her intent is hard to say.
One interesting part is when she brought up Chase. She doesn't explicitly denounce him in the piece, but she definitely portrays him in a negative light in the most subtle of ways. First she uses quotes that make Chase seem like he's some sort of MGTOW, r/redpill evangelist. Then follows up his statements with the perspective of a feminist who asserts that because there's "a huge gender pay gap" that "The least a guy can do is pay for a date that he initiates" (lol). By coupling Chase's statements with the feminist's the audience see's both of them as representations of two opposing viewpoints. Two opposing radical viewpoints. This makes the reader more likely to subscribe to the views of the author. Again this is very subtle and extremely clever as Chase would have nothing substantial to bite at if he were to complain to the publication about his portrayal. Yet he's showed in less than the best light. I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this.
Once again I must emphasize I thought it was a decently written article. It's easy to fall into the trap of rejecting viewpoints that are opposite to yours as garbage. And while I disagreed with the spirit of the article, I still enjoyed the read.
As for paying for dates I've always split things 50-50 with girls on dates. With girlfriends I mainly split things but will pay for the whole thing at times. What I find is when I do, she'll insist on paying for the next one.
Wow I ended up writing way more than I intended to. Not sure what to title this thing anymore either haha. Oh well. Leave your thoughts below guys.
Protean
My process is pretty simple:
- Skim through some of the other articles that the author has written
- Skim through their social media presence (Twitter, Instagram)
- Do a cursory Google search on them to see if anything interesting pops up
- Now read the article. DON'T start reading before going through steps 1-3
Here's how I went through the steps on the Wall Street Journal Article:
Skim through some of the other articles that the author has written
- The author's bio page states that she primarily covers U.S. retail players such as Nike or Under Armour and that she was hired after graduating from Colombia. This is a good sign. It shows she has some formal training in journalist or writing and she writes about more than the latest social outrage.
- I remember seeing her latest article "You Might Be Buying Trash on Amazon --Literally" on the front page of Hackernews a few days ago and it sparked tons of discussion about the tech giant.
- Two of her articles "Nike Workers Protest Company's Treatment of Women" and "Victoria's Secret Rethinks the Supermodel" indicate a liberal bias but a slight to moderate one. Unfortunately they were pay walled for me (out of free articles) so I couldn't investigate further
- Her Twitter feed seems to be mainly based on promoting her work which is a good sign. It's something that I'd expect a normal young journalist to do.
- Her Instagram also seems very normal. Key point is that she features her husband in a few of her posts -including one where they are celebrating their 4 year wedding anniversary. To me, this implies that she has a normal non-toxic relationship with men. Which is again a very good sign.
- Nothing interesting popped up.
- She seems to be a fairly normal westernized gal. She's definitely not some sort of crazy hard core make-bread-from-your-own-genital-yeast type feminist (yes really), but she does have a slight progressive bent that you can expect from your average Columbia educated journalist in the current year.
It's decently written from a technical perspective. The author does a good job of providing a wide array of view points from college aged gals to 30 something year old lawyers to our very own Chase Amante. However, when reading the piece you get the feeling that it was written by women for women. She sprinkles the piece with stories of awkward situations where a lady had to unjustifiably pay for meal on a date. She does this subtly, but I feel most guys would take see those anecdotes and conclude that they should default to offering to pay unless their date insists they split the bill. Whether or not that was her intent is hard to say.
One interesting part is when she brought up Chase. She doesn't explicitly denounce him in the piece, but she definitely portrays him in a negative light in the most subtle of ways. First she uses quotes that make Chase seem like he's some sort of MGTOW, r/redpill evangelist. Then follows up his statements with the perspective of a feminist who asserts that because there's "a huge gender pay gap" that "The least a guy can do is pay for a date that he initiates" (lol). By coupling Chase's statements with the feminist's the audience see's both of them as representations of two opposing viewpoints. Two opposing radical viewpoints. This makes the reader more likely to subscribe to the views of the author. Again this is very subtle and extremely clever as Chase would have nothing substantial to bite at if he were to complain to the publication about his portrayal. Yet he's showed in less than the best light. I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this.
Once again I must emphasize I thought it was a decently written article. It's easy to fall into the trap of rejecting viewpoints that are opposite to yours as garbage. And while I disagreed with the spirit of the article, I still enjoyed the read.
As for paying for dates I've always split things 50-50 with girls on dates. With girlfriends I mainly split things but will pay for the whole thing at times. What I find is when I do, she'll insist on paying for the next one.
Wow I ended up writing way more than I intended to. Not sure what to title this thing anymore either haha. Oh well. Leave your thoughts below guys.
Protean
