We have to imagine this is a pretty bizarre week to work at the Village Voice. For one thing, the alt weekly’s staff union is on the verge of a strike and has set up a Tumblr where they’ll publish content during the protest. As if that weren’t enough stress, now Ashton Kutcher is totally flipping out at them. Here’s the short version of a long story (that merits reading up on in more depth): Kutcher and Demi Moore are behind the Real Men Don’t Buy Girls campaign, which works to end child sex slavery, in part by shaming guys who would pay to sleep with underage girls. Yesterday, the Voice — which has often been criticized for its reliance on escort ads — published a cover story debunking Kutcher’s (and much of the mainstream media’s) claim that there are 100,000-300,000 child sex slaves in the US.
Now, the actor has taken to Twitter, where he boasts over seven million followers, to tell the Voice that “REAL MEN DON’T BUY GIRLS and REAL NEWS PUBLICATIONS DON’T SELL THEM” and warn them, “I’m just getting started!!!!!!!! BTW I only PLAYED stupid on TV.” As we type, the paper is firing back to question Kutcher about why he deleted a (fairly innocuous-sounding) tweet that said, “i’m up now. been up.” To be continued…