Kat Timpf There's nothing more 'lame' than trying to be controversial

In public, and especially on Twitter, this cohort became objects of loathing and derision, excoriated by peers for refusing to “read the room.” But behind the scenes, we were inducted into a weird little priesthood of the unorthodox—mostly via Twitter DMs, which served as a sort of backchannel confessional for fellow writers who agreed that things appeared to be going off the rails, but were too afraid of being canceled to admit as much on main.