Hey, Mom and Dad are fighting listeners. We are often joining the long weekend today, but we have an episode from another podcast we think you'll love. It's from Slate's Gender and Feminism podcast, The Waves. Every episode, a new pair of feminists talk about the thing they can't get off their minds. On this episode, Slate staff writer Heather Schwedell and Slate Senior Editor Rebecca Onion unpack a recent New York magazine article called Canceled at 17. You may have seen it. It was a doozy. The article

talks about a boy who was quote unquote canceled by his high school class and the impact on the

students and community when cancel culture comes calling for teens. Heather and Rebecca

dig into what works and what doesn't about the article, some ethical issues in the reporting,

and whether today's kids are really so different. We thought it would be a good pairing with

last week's teen talk episodes. Enjoy. Welcome to the Waves, Slate's podcast about gender,

feminism, and the list of boys' names written on the girls' bathroom

wall. Every episode, you get a new pair of women to talk about the things we can't get off

our minds. And today, you've got me, Heather Schwedell, a staff writer at Slate. And me, Rebecca

Onion, a senior editor for Slate. This week, we're discussing a controversial long-form article that appears on the cover of the latest issue of New York Magazine under the headline, canceled at 17.

Written by Elizabeth Wheel, it's about a high school student named Diego who gets quote unquote canceled for showing a nude photo of his then girlfriend to some other kids

and everything that comes after that. And the thing that really fascinated me about the story

initially is the dynamics of it are just the exact opposite of what I would have expected

them to be during my own high school years in the 2000s, then it was unimaginable that the whole school

would stand up for Fiona Diego's X and ostracized Diego. But that's what happens in this story.

And that's progress. But is it, though? Rebecca, why did you want to talk about this?

I thought the way that this was written was extremely fascinating.

It's designed to make the reader feel sympathy for this guy who did something that, you know, is very wrong, uncomfortable and upsetting.

But it's also kind of tapped into a lot of people's pet topics in discourse right now.

You know, obviously cancel culture, revenge porn, what the pandemic did to kids. And all of these

things have made people react in a very, very virulent way.

Music have made people react in a very virulent way. We're going to talk about all of that.

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