Originally, I knew nothing about her. I wasn't aware she existed until she quit. A brief check of her archives didn't help; they seemed largely content-free, resembling high school cafeteria chatter. Her site's popularity was puzzling.
When PittGirl introduced herself as Virginia Montanez, it
gave me a good feeling and I was rooting for her. I resolved to follow "That's Church" (overlooking the title, which evokes "mindless dogma") for a while, hoping to catch the fever. The feel-good angle, however, was a one-day story, overrun by news that her employer fired her.I still do not understand. What caused the relatively small, inconspicuous not-for-profit organization for which she worked -- Negro Emergency Education Drive (NEED) -- to terminate Ms. Montanez' employment one day after she revealed her PittGirliness?
The wave of good will I experienced when PittGirl removed her mask has been replaced by distaste. I hope the reasoning underlying NEED's dismissal of six-year employee Virginia Montanez emerges, and I hope it makes more sense than I can currently imagine.
Good luck, Virginia.
UPDATE: Additional consideration has settled my thoughts. Unless NEED provides an adequate explanation, I wouldn't object to seeing it wither and die. Another organization can succeed it with respect to any good works, and there are plenty of other board positions available for the resume-padders.
2 comments:
I'm with ya. I've been following a number of local blogs for a number of years. The couple of times that I check out PittGirl I found it to be silly and shallow. There was/is much more insightful local stuff out there, so she just wasn't worth the time. Consequently, the outpouring of interest--big news when she shut down the site, big news when she came back--is really puzzling. Maybe she was inoffensive and uncontroversial enough that the mainstream media felt comfortable holding her out as the Burghosphere's figurehead.
I can understand that perspective, but as an avid and longtime fan I promise to sort-through and post my reasons for it whenever I have the time. Suffice for now it had something to do with appealing to the lowest common denominator without sacrificing intelligence. And of course appealing to an underserved demographic.
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