Outrageously Tone Deaf Rolling Stone Piece Points Out the Real Victims of the War in Ukraine
Recently Rolling Stone has been publishing one ridiculous article on their web magazine after another. The most recent is their attempt at tossing their proverbial hat in the ring of the widest public discourse around right now, the ever evolving war in Ukraine subsequent Putin’s Russian invasion.
Obviously, the stories and images coming from the region right now are heartbreaking and distressing. People are being forced to sleep in subway stations as makeshift bomb shelters, residential apartments have been hit by missiles, and an elderly driver was ridden over by a rogue Russian tank in the middle of the street.
The fighting has been a harsh reality of the fragility of a peaceful and free society and a reminder that so many times, especially in that part of the world, regular people have been called on to fight to protect their homeland from a foreign incursion.
Now, I understand the spirit of what this article published by Rolling Stone is getting at. Regular Russian people are suffering too. International sanctions on the Russian economy will financially harm most Russians in the short-term, and we’ll stand to see the extent of any long-term effects as well. In Putin’s derangement, his own citizens are also victims.
His own citizens of course including most notably the multitude of Russian sex workers who make a living posting nudes on OnlyFans. The article quotes Alana Evans, the President of Adult Performers’ Artists Guild (huh? – someone didn’t use grammarly) who noted:
“her team has been fielding complaints from many Russian and Belarussian creators who have found their accounts frozen, and that the group is looking into ways to work with other organizations and raise aid for sex workers on both sides impacted by the war.”
True heroism at work in a time of crisis. We have to secure the short-term finances of the great women (and men?) of the online sex economy.
Evans goes on to say:
‘“I’m heartbroken for them [sex workers] because I can imagine how difficult things may be. I remember what life was like for us when Trump was our president, and so many of us didn’t support him, so I can understand what it’s like living under a leader who makes choices you don’t agree with,” she says. “Politics aside, they are people.”’
Incredible quote.
I mean awe-inspiring. Firstly, have to make the obligatory Trump jab in every article over a year after his relevance crashed to 0, always an important piece of modern journalism and virtue signaling.
Secondly, just an incredibly bad false equivalency. I know she’s not a politician nor was she really trying to make any political statement here, but essentially playing the “these people are the victims because their President’s a dummy card” in a certain way as to compare an American who didn’t like President Trump (of which there were many) to the Russian people now thrust into a war with a neighbor because of their President’s complete sociopathy, is an astonishingly bad look.
As much as I agree with her last line in this quote, that people are not the politics of their country, and yes a lot of Russians, of all work and walks of life are going to suffer not by their own choice, it’s a wildly tone deaf way to angle into this ongoing mega-news story. Yeah, we get it, they can’t get paid anymore by OnlyFans if you’re working out of Russia or Belarus. This is a part of the economic sanctions, and there are many more avenues where this will hurt civilians in Russia. But there’s no equivalency whatsoever with the tribulations affecting the citizens of Ukraine. Ask any of these Russian models if they would trade places with their neighbors in Kiev. Nary a one would do it. They didn’t ask for this, but neither did any Ukrainian.
Just a hilariously bad swing-and-a-miss here by Rolling Stone. Here’s a few tips.
- Avoid a headline like this so as to not appear like you’re downplaying the entire situation of the war and the actual suffering of Ukrainians.
- Start broad with this concept. Yes, we should be covering how economic sanctions are effecting everyday Russians, and how this may differ from their intended effect on Putin and co.
- Use the Onlyfans angle as one of many examples of how these sanctions are hurting regular Russians.
The last part of this article is the most important. It’s a quote from one of the OnlyFans content creators, a Russian.
“Nothing will compare with war and explosions near your home. But blocking bank accounts of peaceful Russian people, blocking working pages and freezing income won’t help Ukraine,” she says. “[We] are humans, who really wish peaceful sky under Ukraine and want to help as much as we can.”
The collateral damage from sanctions is intentional. This is the entire point. Sow dissent amongst the Russian people and that puts domestic pressure on Putin to rethink his strategy and potential peace talks. Perhaps taking some time out of your normal day and whilst thinking of your Ukrainian cousins doing the same in order to shove styrofoam into glass alcohol bottles to make molotov cocktails, walk down to the Kremlin, join the other protestors there against the war, and strip in a patriotic act of defiance. Who knows maybe a few pervy oligarchs will Venmo you something.
P.S. I’m not a journalist on war either, but if you do want to keep up, here’s some actually good outlets who have mostly done good reporting on the Ukraine situation: