Teen Vogue was supposed to publish an editorial about the misconceptions surrounding video game violence being used as a crutch for school shootings, as well as the way the media treats these shootings when when accounting for race relations. The article was penned by Professor Patrick Markey and Professor Chris Ferguson. However, the article was killed off because the Teen Vogue editor didn’t like that the two professors didn’t cite “misogyny” and “toxic masculinity” as the potential motivators behind real life violence, especially in relation to shootings.

The news was documented by Professor Markey, who engaged in a Twitter conversation with Teen Vogue’s politics editor, Lucy Diavolo, who attempted to modify the op-ed and add “misogyny” and “toxic masculinity” into the fold, much to the aversion of Markey and Ferguson. At the end of the conversation Diavolo protected their Twitter account while there was a lengthy Twitter thread from Markey going through the explication of the event.

I don’t want to start some kind of Twitter war with @TeenVogue but what the opinions editor at that publication said about why they “spiked” our op-ed (which they invited us to write) is simply not true. So weird because our piece was about race and shootings too (THREAD). https://t.co/o1y6RSUBdF

— Patrick Markey (@patmarkey) April 2, 2019

In the thread itself, Markey wrote…

“Before the editor locked down her tweets she claimed she “spiked” our op-ed because we ignored data concerning gender in the context of school shootings and video games. However, this is not what occurred. What we did do was refuse to allow her to put information into our op-ed that was not yet backed by science. This happened way back in August and I never mentioned the spiking of the op-ed it because I felt, as the op-ed editor, she had the right to make this call.

“However, due to her tweet (which you cannot see anymore) posted on 4/2 which falsely characterized the situation I felt it was important to set the record straight. At the end of the day – our op-ed was spiked not due to its theme or accuracy but simply because we didn’t want to add in the word “toxic masculinity” as a cause of school shootings. It is ironic that the main theme of the op-ed was that when we wrongly blame things (like video games) for causing school shootings this sometimes has unintended consequences with video games one of these consequences, affects not only perceptions of video games’ effects, but also reflects disparities in the culpability we assign to criminals depending on their race With no empirical evidence linking “toxic masculinity” to such events we thought it was best to not mention this as a cause of school shootings. Anyone who it interested can read the original op-ed here (it was later picked up by SPSP).”

Markey also links to the op-ed, which was published back over at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in October, 2018

Markey also included images of the edits that Diavolo made to the original editorial, adding in the phrase “toxic masculinity” while linking to an outrage-bait piece from Harper’s Bazaar blaming mass shootings on “male entitlement” and “toxic masculinity”, which was published back in February, 2018 in response to the Parkland, Florida shooting.

And here is the addition of the word “misogyny” into our op-ed by the editor. pic.twitter.com/IgCRrradan

— Patrick Markey (@patmarkey) April 3, 2019

Wisely, Markey pointed out that there was no actual science behind these made-up terms originating out of the Social Justice Warrior’s vernacular. Diavolo was persistent on wanting to blame “toxic masculinity” and “misogyny” for the shootings, even though it had nothing to do with the editorial, had no science backing up those terms, and it had nothing to do with the discussion centered on video games catching blame for said shootings.

Markey continued to push back against Diavolo’s attempts to hijack the op-ed’s discussion with a focus on something that only exists in the circles of Left-wing propagandists.

Eventually, Markey was overthrown by Diavolo. His attempts to fight to retain a discussion based on science and facts is what did the op-ed in. Diavolo “spiked” the piece and pulled the plug on the collaboration, preventing the op-ed from appearing on Teen Vogue.

There’s obviously no rebuttal from Diavolo, since the Twitter account for the Teen Vogue editor is still protected as of the publishing of this article.

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