The New York Times Tried To Whitewash Balenciaga Ads Sexualizing Children... It Didn't Go Well.

The New York Times story prompted a massive Twitter backlash, showing the newspaper is profoundly out of touch with the American people on this issue.

What do the Balenciaga ads sexualizing young children have to do with conspiracy theories?

Absolutely nothing.

Yet, the headline on the New York Times story today was: “When High Fashion and QAnon Collide.” QAnon is the NYT’s reference to a bogey-man organization of the far right that supposedly opposes child pornography by elites.

Then one the authors of the article, Elizabeth Paton, a reporter for the NYT Styles section, wrote in a tweet, that the Balenciaga “controversy has become one of the most explicit collisions of internet culture, politics, fashion and conspiracy theories to date.”

CONSPIRACY THEORY?

Anyone can look at the ads and see little girls standing on beds holding teddy bears rigged with sado-masochistic bondage gear. You are in severe denial if you say the ads do NOT sexualize toddlers. Moreover, these little girls will be marked for their rest of lives because they appeared in the ads, which is why most media outlets blur their faces.

Of course Balenciaga condoned child exploitation.

And it is not an allegation when it is patently obvious and leaves no room for interpretation.

Nobody is buying The New York Times’ Narrative

There is hope for humanity after-all. Ms. Paton’s comments on her twitter account were universally deplored. Here are just a few:

• “How was the ad NOT child exploitation? From the bondage-gear clad teddy bears to the legal documents related to child pornography in the frame, where's the conspiracy exactly? Even Balenciaga issued an ass-covering apology & sued ad agency.”

• “Welp, that settles it I must have all imagined it then.”

• “The confabulation you've drawn between conspiracy theories and something that ACTUALLY happened is outrageous and the idea that Balenciaga wasn't aware and didn't sign off on these campaigns is ludicrous. SHAME ON YOU!!!”

• “Spot on! @LizziePaton supports child exploitation!!”

• “Remember that time you ran cover for child sexual exploitation.”

• “This article is abhorrent!! The disgust at photographing children with sexually explicit teddy bears has been pretty universal. I cannot imagine how the

  @nytimes tries to pass this rubbish off as journalism. Now it’s time for everyone to move on.”

• “OK groomer”

• “Siri, how what’s the going rate for a human soul?”

• “This is not a conspiracy theory, this actually happened. And it caused a great deal of concern to a lot of people. To equate concerned parents with q-anon in order to carry water for a fashion house that went too far, is disgusting even 4 the NYT.”

• “You sicken me.”

• “You don't have to do this.”

• “Nice try.”

• “Do you regret writing this yet?”

• “Covering for pedophelia isn’t a good look”

• “After this piece, calling yourself a journalist is an incredible display of self-glorification.”

The overwhelming majority - see for yourself - of responses to Ms. Paton’s tweet were profoundly negative.

And the same is true for co-author, Vanessa Friedman, who had more than a hundred scathing tweets at press time, including, “Yea, this ain’t the move. This is really blatant and this article looks like its trying to protect the pedo biz” and “Cool, you can now add defended pedos to your resume.”

Sexualizing children to sell overpriced merch is NOT okay. It may even be low-level kiddie porn in itself.

Why don’t Ms. Paton and The New York Times know this?

The other author was Jessica Testa.