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The wave of good will I experienced when PittGirl removed her mask has been replaced by distaste.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.
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.
ReplyDeleteI 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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