About

Lauren Duca is a writer and prominent Twitter personality who has divided readers, some of whom find her a bold new feminist voice while others have argued she's a grifter and "quasi-journalist." She is the author of the book, How to Start a Revolution.

History

Duca was born February 24th, 1991 in New Jersey.^[1] After working a couple jobs in New York City media, she began writing as a freelance writer in 2015. On December 10th, 2016, she wrote an essay for Teen Vogue titled "Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America,"^[2] which became one of the most popular essays the publication had ever published and signaled the magazine's turn to more political content.^[3] From there, she started a column called "Thigh High Politics,"^[4] named after an exclamation made by Tucker Carlson when he interviewed Duca on his show, in which she continued writing political articles for the site. She also became a media darling, and was profiled by several high-profile publications including The New York Times^[1] and The Today Show. In May of 2018, she was invited by New York University, her alma mater, to be a visiting scholar, and taught a class titled “The Feminist Journalist” in the summer of 2019.^[5] In September of 2019, she published her first book, How to Start a Revolution: Young People and the Future of American Politics.

Reputation

While Duca began rising in prominence in the public eye, she attracted criticism for her behavior. Jezebel^[6] wrote a piece which quoted several former coworkers of hers at Huffington Post, who called her hypocritical. During one stint, they alleged Duca had sent emails through what was meant to be an anonymous account throughout the company criticizing coworkers and herself.

Martin Shkreli publicly entertained an intense interest in her, and Duca repeatedly had to reject his advances. His harassment of Duca led to the suspension of his account under Twitter's harassment policies.^[7]

Buzzfeed Article

On September 17th, 2019, Buzzfeed^[5] published an article painting Duca in a negative light, noting how students of her course "The Feminist Journalist" filed a formal complaint to NYU, saying "We are disappointed at the department and NYU for hiring a professor with more interest in promoting her book than teaching a group of students eager to learn,” and one student telling the writer of the Buzzfeed piece, Scaachi Koul, "Her ability to exploit the movement is really frustrating." The piece also noted how many mocked the syllabus for the course, which said that 20% of students' grades would come from tweeting.

According to Koul, students reached out to her to say "Duca didn’t follow her own syllabus, that she spoke often and inappropriately about her personal life, that she would belittle and yell at students, and, most pressingly, that she targeted one student in particular." The student spoke English as a second language and Duca allegedly did not accept her work. When Koul pressed Duca on this matter, she said:

“You're being so fucking hard on me, Scaachi, and I really, really, really, really would ask you if you would be grilling a man in this same way. It's amazing. The shit that I have endured to continue to sustain a voice where I'm just fighting every inch for the same thing that I think that you want, which is public power and equality, and I'm trying my goddamn best, okay?… Congratulations, you thrillingly, thrillingly adept journalist, you have discovered that Lauren Duca is not perfect. Put it in the headline, baby.”

At another point in the article, Duca admitted she had tried cunnilingus for the first time the day before the NYC Pride Parade, leading her to tweet "Happy Pride because no one is 100% straight."

The story inspired a heavy amount of mockery on Twitter, particularly the "You're being so fucking hard on me" and cunnilingus quotes. Twitter user @CharlesFLehman said the piece was mostly journalist gossip but admitted the "You're so fucking hard on me" quote was "a lot" (shown below, left). Will Menaker joked "This Lauren Duca lady is something else! I mean, I just ate pussy for the first time last week and you don't hear me crowing about it" (shown below, right).

Online Presence

Duca is most popular on Twitter, where she has over 426,000 followers.^[8] She has been cited as one of the most prominent voices of Resistance Twitter, leading to her online fame.^[5][6]

Search Interest

External References