Andrew Sullivan has been waging the sort of jihad only Andrew Sullivan can wage (which is to say, narrowly focused and manically obsessive) against "native advertising." (Here's an example of native advertising gone spectacularly wrong; check out Buzzfeed's home page for more examples. HINT: If you have trouble finding the ads, look for the posts clearly marked "PRESENTED BY [Brand X] ... FEATURE PARTNER.") Here is Sully's latest post, in which he suggests that Ralph Waldo Emerson would be depressed by the level of prose found in native ads.
Frankly, I think Emerson would be more disturbed by the fact that the magazine employs as a senior editor someone who is ignorant of St. Augustine and feels bold enough to essentially say "Western canon, Raekwon, what's the diff?" in its digital pages. I also wonder how he would feel about the Atlantic's attempted exploitation of freelance writers.* Further, I imagine Emerson'd love the Aspen Ideas Festival.
But what I really think would make Emerson weep is this list of most-read stories of 2012 in the latest issue of the Atlantic:
"The Art of Ideas," indeed. More like "The Art of Click Bait," amirite?
For the record, I subscribe to and really enjoy the Atlantic. I might blog later on today about a great, reported piece they published this month about the death of that census worker in Kentucky who had been hung and had "FED" scrawled on his chest, whose death the media quickly pinned on anti-government "extremists" like the Tea Party movement. I just think the mag has bigger things to worry about than the possibility that one of the people who made "Gangnam Style," Dissected the fourth-best read story on the website of one of our nation's oldest and most prestigious literary magazines last year might get confused when they read sponsored content.
*Always valuable: Harlan Ellison's thoughts on writers eschewing payment for the glories of "exposure."