So, The Toast has this great feeling where men just seem to be just so quiet, and even the male fans who want to be involved quietly participate and don’t force their way in. How do you think that’s come about, and how do we make the rest of the Internet exactly like that?
[laughs] I mean, this is a great question. “How can we make men quieter in general?” is always a worthwhile thing to ask. They have a really hard time with it. They struggle. They are sweethearts, but it doesn’t come naturally. We just make it super clear that men aren’t the point. There’s not going to be a lot of patience for a straight white guy coming in and saying ‘have you thought about my experience?’ because odds are…we’ve heard it, and odds are your experience is actually a little silly and nobody ever told you your experience is a little bit silly, they always told you it was very very serious and important.
I just think in general that straight white men can be great, but they should be told slightly more often that they are being silly. It’s just not something we worry about, or give a lot of thought to, and that’s sort of worked out for us. So I would say: just pat more men on the head, don’t think about them very much, laugh at them instead of answering their questions, but laugh gently and with good humour. I don’t know, give them something to do — hand them a farm or whatever.
— The Great Mallory Ortberg, on how The Toast keeps dudes with Opinions from taking over their comment section
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