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Why Did Alexi McCammond Want to Be EIC at Teen Vogue to Begin With?

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  March 21, 2021 5:47 PM

Editor's Note: This article contains graphic content. 

It's never fun when cancel culture claims a victim, especially when said victim apologizes for those tweets which got her into trouble – when she was 17 – years ago. I'm talking about Alexi McCammond here, who is in the spotlight as the would-be editor-in-chief of Teen Vogue. She parted ways with the publication days before she even started.

I feel for her, and how her apologies were not enough, to the point where her career may forever be affected, a 27-year old rising star, or at least she used to be a rising star. 

One of her particularly vocal critics was Christine Davitt, who joined in on speaking out against McCammond when the tweets resurfaced. She continued to do so even after McCammond announced her decision to part ways with Teen Vogue late last week. That's relevant because  tDavitt, who is the Senior Social Media Manager of Teen Vogue no less, and who has worked in social media for years, had offensive tweets of her own, over two years with at least three tweets.

Like a coward, she set her Instagram and Twitter to private once Fox News' Morgan Phillips exposed her hypocrisy on Saturday night, which I myself also covered. Davitt, who is of Filipino and Irish descent, tweeted out "n***a multiple times, and it doesn't look like she used asterisks either.

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If Davitt apologizes over social media, how will we even know that, then?

By the way, Davitt's tweets, at least the ones we know of, are from 2009 and 2010. Considering Davitt graduated from SUNY New Paltz in 2010, she wasn't 17 at the time.

It doesn't sound like McCammond and Davitt would be best buddies, to say the least. Who knows what hostile work environment would have ensued, between McCammond or Davitt, or any of the other employees who were at the ready with pitchforks to cancel McCammond. 

For one, Davitt is a hypocrite. Not just for her criticism of McCammond, and I do mean it appears to be fierce and relentless, but because her own publication, when she had been working there already for a few months, published an op-ed from Tayo Bero in October 2019, "Stop Using the N-Word If You're Not Black," which in closing read:

There’s been much debate within the Black community about the N-word and just how much good our supposed “reclaiming” of it can actually do. And in moments like this, that feels like a valid point. But one thing that shouldn’t be up for dispute is who gets to use it. And if you ain’t Black, that ain’t you.

Phillips' reporting pointed out that the person Davitt was tweeting at with those tweets in question appeared to be white. 

Teen Vogue is the bottom of the barrel, in so many ways. When I read the physical magazine version as a teenager, it had your dose of liberal politics, but it also had fashion and beauty. It existed as a magazine from 2003-2017. It still, very much so, exists online. A Google search result of the website describes it as one in which it's "The latest on fashion, beauty, celebrity style, entertainment, teen issues..."

Now, the outlet has turned into a mouthpiece for far-left perspectives. If you want to see just how obsessed they are with not just being pro-choice, but actively promoting abortion, I hope you have hours devoted to doing a deep dive search. 

Sadly, it's a trend to deny biology by not just saying that women have vaginas and men have penises. Teen Vogue is not just on that bandwagon, it's practically leading it. One particular example of this is a tweet, published no less than six times over three years linking to this updated November 1, 2019 piece "How to Masturbate if You Have a Vagina: Fingers and Toys Tips." An original piece was published years earlier.

Four of those six tweets read it's for "vagina owners."

There's also an updated piece dated that same day, "How to Masturbate If You Have a Penis: 9 Tips and Techniques," where at least three tweets link to it, from 2018, noting "if you have a penis." 

Hilariously, Piers Morgan went after them with regards to one of those "vagina owner" tweets.

It's not just the masturbation article which references "vagina owners," but an "Anal Sex: Safety, How tos, Tips, and More" piece from November 12, 2019, with the original being from 2017. It's still published on the website. 

The excerpt in question reads, "Just because you have a vagina does not mean anal is off-limits. Many vagina owners love anal play. You don’t need to have a prostate to enjoy anal sex." Another excerpt reads "For some vagina owners, anal sex can stimulate the internal clitoris, which is highly pleasurable." 

There's more explicit content where that came from, so please, click and read at your own risk. 

There are no less than eight tweets over three years promoting the article. Two of those, both from 2017, read "This is anal 101, for teens, beginners, and all inquisitive folk." As a warning, some of the tweet replies are also graphic in nature.

The backlash shortly following the initial publication was, as expected, huge. How did Teen Vogue respond? Chances are it's exactly how you expected them to. 

To sum it up, you're just homophobic if you take issue. Philip Picardi, who was at the time the Digital Editorial Officer, before being promoted to the Chief Content Officer before leaving in December 2018, made such a statement via multiple tweets, including a lengthy screed of a thread. 

Pride and Gay Star News were over the moon. The former provides a transcript of the thread, with original italics. The final tweet included a picture of a man kissing another man, giving the middle finger to the camera, with his nail painted like the gay pride flag:

"We published a 411 on Anal Sex story on @TeenVogue as a continued part of our sex education coverage. I monitor the webmaster email and have been inundated with hate mail saying we promote sodomy and want teens to get AIDS. 

It's funny, because I went to Catholic high school and had 0 sex education. I also had a teacher tell me gay sex was a sin in God's eyes. 

Fast forward to frosh year of NYU, me crying at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, bc I'd just slept w someone who I found out was HIV+. The kind folks at Callen-Lorde taught me about HIV/AIDS, what it is, and how it's contracted. They also told me to get tested regularly. They also explained the concept of HIV stigma, and that HIV and AIDS are two different things. And that HIV is not a death sentence. Then they taught me the importance of safer sex, and what I needed to know in particular as a gay man. I left a 40-minute doctor's appointment with more life-saving information than I ever received in all my years of private school education.

You see, my Catholic school was guilty of endangering all of us by sheer omission of FACTS. EDUCATION doesn't equal ENCOURAGEMENT. Multiple studies have shown abstinence-only sex-ed is linked to higher rates of STIs and teen pregnancies. TBH, it is IRRESPONSIBLE.

How can you possibly expect teenagers to practice safe sex if they don't know what's at risk? How can you expect young women to not get pregnant without access to reproductive health care?

The backlash to this article is rooted in homophobia. It's also laced in arcane delusion about what it means to be a young person today. If I had today's @TeenVogue and @VeraPapisova when I was a teen, I would have been so much safer and better off. Instead, I made mistakes that consisted of quite a few doctor's appointments! But I'm ok!! But until queer sex, love, and families are included in education, we're doing a dangerous and potentially lethal disservice to a growing population. Gen Z will be our queerest and most fearless generation yet.

Gigi Engle, the author of both masturbation guides and the anal sex guide, whose Twitter bio includes that she is a "Certified Sex Educator, & Clinical Sexologist," also was completely unapologetic in her tone-deaf response.

Kudos to Feminist Current for pushing back with "No, Teen Vogue, the backlash to your anal sex article was not rooted in homophobia."

There's still a "Sex and Relationships" topic under the "Identity" section. Gigi Engle's latest piece, "What Does "Horny" Mean? 5 Signs You're Horny," is from April 14, 2020.

If she does continue with journalism, hopefully, McCammond can set her sights higher than on an outlet that defends their anal sex guide for teens by claiming everyone else is homophobic.