What's happening: Taylor Lorenz, the controversial journalist influencer best known for her coverage of teen culture and the Chinese spyware app TikTok, is celebrating a birthday today. She works for the Washington Post.
Why it matters: No one really knows how old she is. The mystery surrounding Lorenz's true age prompted a Washington Free Beacon investigation in 2020. We know she was born on October 21, but the year of her birth remains a matter of debate in the investigative community.
• To the best of our knowledge, Lorenz was born in 1984 and today is her 38th birthday.
• Our findings contradicted a New York Times report suggesting she was born in 1986.
• Lorenz claimed to be 43 years old in March of this year, which would make her 44 today.
The big picture: Lorenz has implied she regularly lies about her age for attention. She claims to suffer from "severe PTSD" and has a long history of courting controversy.
• In the month of October alone, she berated a colleague at the Post, peddled an anti-vaccine conspiracy, and admitted to multiple crimes.
• "I am a lizard person," Lorenz revealed in May following a Free Beacon investigation into her unusual habit of drinking "about three gallons of water daily" and keeping the temperature in her Los Angeles apartment at 87 degrees.
• Lorenz complained in 2021 that Times reporter Maggie Haberman was a "bitch" for challenging her weird obsession with a teenager's social media posts. She left the Times for the Post several months later.
• She has been called "literally worse than [Vladimir] Putin," among other things.