Lifestyle
Ariana Baio
Jan 24, 2023
content.jwplatform.com
47-year-old musician Phil Labonte triggered a firestorm of misogynistic and objectifying comments against 23-year-old journalist Kat Abughazaleh after posting her Tinder profile to Twitter.
Monday night, Labonte, who often expresses right-leaning political views on Twitter, posted Abughazaleh’s profile saying, “I haven’t even gotten the keys to my apartment yet and Tinder is already tryin to hook me up with the Media Matters Tucker Carlson explainer girl.”
Abughazaleh covers Carlson and right-wing extremism for Media Matters, a nonprofit and media watchdog group.
Despite super-liking Abughazaleh and messaging her, Labonte responded to Twitter comments indicating he wasn’t going to start anything with the journalist.
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“I’m not trying to be a Media Matters hit piece. I did send her a message like, ‘yo, Tinder is f***in with me!’,” Labonte wrote.
With 134 quote tweets and 1400+ likes, Labonte may have found the tweet amusing.
\u201cI haven\u2019t even gotten the key to my apartment yet and tinder is already tryin to hook me up with the Media Matters Tucker Carlson explainer girl. \ud83d\ude02\u201d— Phil Labonte (@Phil Labonte) 1674435490
But for Abughazaleh, it was a different story.
The journalist received a slew of disparaging and sexist comments from people.
Attaching a collage of comments chosen at random, Abughazaleh wrote, “POV: You’re a 23-year-old woman who researches right-wing extremism and a 47-year-old conservative commentator posts your dating profile on Twitter.”
Comments like, “you can fix her”, "lucky you", and "could be fun" plagued the replies.
\u201cPOV: You're a 23-year-old woman who researches right-wing extremism and a 47-year-old conservative commentator posts your dating profile on Twitter.\u201d— Kat Abu (@Kat Abu) 1674524153
Some comments objectified Abughazaleh comparing her to a "hooker", calling her "easy", and more.
One reply notably condoned violence saying, "beat that s*** up so bad it becomes a Libertarian."
Abughazaleh says she decided to put the comments together to "show just how aggressive and widespread misogyny is on the Internet."
"Sexism, objectification, and threats are a regular occurrence for me. I genuinely can’t imagine that I would get the same comments if I were a man," Abughazaleh said.
Abughazaleh called out Labonte's "weird and hostile" post by clarifying some of his tweets, specifically one where he claimed to have only messaged her "Tinder is f***in with me!
In reality, the musician said, "I haven't even gotten the keys to my apartment yet and Tinder is playing games 😏."
\u201cit\u2019s the \ud83d\ude0f for me\u201d— Kat Abu (@Kat Abu) 1674504193
Tons of Twitter users came to Abughazaleh's defense, calling Labonte "sad" and "embarrassing" for posting the 23-year-old's Tinder profile which also revealed his age radius on the dating app.
Abughazaleh says she often doesn't use dating apps because of the misogyny that goes on, plus people often recognize her from Twitter where she has developed a following of more than 80k.
She added, "There’s plenty of typical misogyny to go around on there without the political motivation."
We reached out to Labonte for comment.
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