I'm Starting to Feel a Little Bad for Linda Yaccarino

Lol, just kidding she stinks!

Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox Media

In my more charitable moments, I’d like to think I can find some ember of relatable humanity in everybody. I’d like to think that about myself because, frankly, it’s become scarily easy to join in on public pile-ons for people who often find their worst moments broadcast to millions of digital piranhas salivating at the scent of blood in the online waters through which we all swim.

What I’m saying is that I can possibly imagine a world in which I might feel bad for X CEO Linda Yaccarino—a woman hand-picked by the world’s wealthiest antisemite for the sole purpose of being the public face of a once-beloved(ish) website amid an irrevocable swirl down the toilet.

I can imagine that world… but I sure as shit don’t live in it.

Instead, in this world, I am having a wonderful time watching Yaccarino hilariously denigrate herself in real-time for no reason other than that’s what she was hired to do. Judging by her most recent activity, she’s going to keep doing it for a long time to come.

Yaccarino’s ability to blithely post the most inane pablum imaginable is hardly a secret. The former NBC exec has been repeatedly noted for her dogged commitment to counterbalancing Elon Musk’s ketamine-fueled descent into racist shitposting with an endless stream of insipid non sequiturs about food and college sports. If Musk is the divorced suburban dad screaming the N-word after too many $1 margaritas at Applebees, Yaccarino is the studiously oblivious waitress one table over, asking a family of horrified onlookers if they’ve got room for dessert.

The dynamic was pretty amusing for a while — Elon would say something horrifying about White Genocide, and Yaccarino would share a poll about flannel pajamas or something — but like all good internet shtick, it wasn’t meant to last. What was once pretty funny is honestly just kind of sad now. After less than a year on the job, Yaccarino — theoretically one of the most powerful titans of Silicon Valley — has reached full-blown desperation hours.

Here’s a good example of just how pathetic this whole thing has become.