Yashar Ali

Los Angeles magazine has ripped the extra-large curtain off Twitter socialite Yashar Ali. The publication detailed his feuds with celebrities, as well as his debts to an heiress and his rolodex of media moguls. Peter Kiefer studied Ali's rise from an unknown political operative for Gavin Newsom to a social media power broker — it's a backstory copied straight out of The Talented Mr Ripley. The profile is engrossing and full of scandal — yet has gone curiously unnoticed by most of the media in the last 48 hours. Perhaps journalists feared Ali might lock himself in their wine cellar for six months, or cancel them as he did New York Times food writer Alison Roman.

As the country remains roiled in protests after the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man by white police officer Derek Chauvin, social media’s attention is shifting to accusations of racism from high profile names. In recent days, actress Lea Michele, Bon Appétit editor Adam Rapoport, Refinery29 founder and editor Christene Barberich and food writer Alison Roman have all faced accusations of racism. Michele was terrible to a black actress, Rapoport did brownface, Barberich faced a slew of criticism under the #BlackatR29 hashtag on Twitter about the way black writers and editors were treated on her site. But Roman’s part in the story is the most micro of all the aggressions. On Monday, a picture surfaced of Roman in costume, from many years ago.