It may come as a surprise to you, but the general consensus among marketers and media mogul alike, is that sex sells. Few seem to understand this universal truth better than Tucker Carlson, one time conservative pundit host of CNN’s Crossfire, before he was fired, and current editor in chief of the risible Daily Caller.
Envisioned as a vehicle for the utterly inane and un-newsworthy ramblings of Carlson himself, the Caller soon garnered a reputation as the home of swivel-eyed, right-wing punditry.
So, when 41-year-old singer, Stacy Ann Ferguson – better known as Fergie – posted a racy photograph to her Instagram account, the hard-news instincts forged from years of media experience took over.
The headline is breathtaking:
“Fergie Shares Topless Photo Online [PHOTOS]”
Readers Hunger For Opinion
Despite appearances, this was not an attempt at feeding the voracious appetites of the sites’ religious right sugar daddies. Carlson would never do that.
“We care about traffic …
He added:
“But the Caller is more than click-bait…it’s a gamble that right-leaning readers hunger not only for opinion pieces written by their own—the bread and butter of established conservative magazines like the Weekly Standard and National Review and the Wall Street Journal opinion page—but that they’re looking for news reported by their own as well.”
The hunger he spoke of was on full display here. The copy described, with lavish attention, the sordid details of the photo placed just below it:
“In the shot she is wearing a see-through red raincoat, a black body suit that only goes up to her stomach and nothing but her arms covering her chest, revealing a ton of cleavage.”
The Pressing Of Flesh
How the sweaty palms of the swallowed youth must have tensed in anticipation. How they must have quivered as they scrolled down to reveal Fergie in all her bare-chested glory.
Not even the adjacent link, promising ‘celebrity moms showing some skin in Fergie’s new video,’ was enough to slow the inexorably downward scrolling of the mouse wheel to reveal…
…A picture of Fergie showing less décolletage than you would likely see on the average award ceremony red carpet stroll.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJv2OseAxdr/
Granted, Fergie was not wearing a top, and in strictly technical terms, she was therefore topless. She was as topless as a woman trying on a bikini behind the safety of a stretched out towel, and few could deny that somewhere behind her carefully positioned hands and arms, there was definitely a pair of human breasts.
Carlson always knew this would happen:
“In recent years, a whole new media ecosystem has sprung up around this premise, bringing new energy and digital savvy (and a lot more busty slide-shows) to compete with the occasionally stodgy old outlets of the right.”
Busty slide-shows are indeed a feature of the new media ecosystem Carlson was espousing, so prevalent in fact, that some of them don’t even need to constitute part of a slide-show.
Or indeed, include any actual busts.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIJCwSJAbk2/
Featured Image By Fergie Via Instagram.
