The Dave Portnoy School of Image Rehabilitation

Barstool Sports and its supreme leader have rapidly gained ground on the one demographic they've historically mostly managed to piss off: women.

Turns out, just the right amount of baby-talking an adopted pit bull can mend the reputation of even the most notoriously loathed on the plane of digital media. Having weathered incessant controversy over something he said, did, or was alleged to have done, Dave Portnoy never lost the loyalty of his fawning internet servants, the “Stoolies,” which comes as no surprise. What does surprise me is how Portnoy and Barstool Sports have successfully curried the favor of historically would-be critics: young, liberal white women.

Portnoy and his brainchild (equal parts sports media outlet and courier of softcore porn, home of the recurrent “Guess That Ass” blog feature and “Smokeshows” pages primarily featuring scantily clad co-eds at Big Ten or SEC colleges) have long been associated with a frat-boy brand of the right that has its own name: political correspondent Matthew Walther coined the term “Barstool Conservatism” in 2021, to denote the social movement away from polite, tight-lipped Country Club Republicanism and toward the Trump/Portnoy style—brash, arrogant, and all-too-eager to offend naysayers. So when did the feelings towards Portnoy become so warm and fuzzy, enough so to receive a handwritten thank-you note from the world’s biggest pop star, childless cat lady, and Kamala Harris endorser, Taylor Swift?

Let’s travel back to 2019 when the former so-called “Token” female CEO (her words, not mine!) of Barstool Sports, Erika Nardini, shared that young women were the platform’s fastest-growing demographic. I can make an educated guess that this was thanks to the sensational popularity of Call Her Daddy, a podcast hosted by Alex Cooper and her then-cohost Sofia Franklyn (a gnarly contract dispute created a rift between the two, prompting Cooper to go solo on the project and head for the neon-green pastures at Spotify, to the tune of $60 million). Cooper most recently made headlines for interviewing Vice President Kamala Harris about a month out from election day, which elicited considerable backlash from the Daddy Gang (Cooper’s pet name for fans of the podcast). A great many fans revealed themselves to be outspokenly conservative, possibly residual day-ones from the Barstool days of yore—Cooper laid with the dogs when she signed on with Barstool, and she’s still shaking off the fleas. Nardini also ultimately left Barstool, but the company, its talent, and Portnoy, all historically characterized as grossly chauvinistic, have continued to gain ground on the enormous consumer power of young women. They have not rebranded, far from it, but have strategically, subtly redirected and provided distractions to get everyone to forget all about that.

Trying to succinctly summarize Barstool’s rap sheet with women is a fool’s errand, but the most infamous among the charges includes Portnoy’s pattern of disparaging and launching all-out harassment campaigns against women in journalism. He once called reporter Laura Ponder a “fucking slut” who should stick to “making men hard, which is her only job.” When Ponder publicly called him out, causing a Barstool partnership with ESPN to fall through, he responded with outrage and called upon his following to mercilessly harass her. In 2021, Business Insider published a report including testimony from women who claimed they had sexual interactions with Portnoy that, granted, began consensually, but unexpectedly escalated to the point of violence or violation. One woman described screaming in pain and crying out for Portnoy to stop, to no avail. Another said Portnoy slapped her across the face and grabbed her torso so forcefully she suffered a rib fracture. There was unexpected, uninvited choking (an unfortunate and all-too-common phenomenon Emily Leibert explored a few weeks back in The Cut) and being filmed without consent. Every single woman in the article spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing the wrath of Portnoy and his Stoolies. His response was, just as these women had anticipated, to mobilize his foot soldiers in an all-out war against the reporters who broke the story. He bragged that the allegations had only strengthened the loyalty of his fan base. He filed lawsuits against Insider, Inc., CEO Henry Blodget, editor-in-chief Nicholas Carlson, and the writers, Julia Black and Melkorka Licea. The case was thrown out by a federal judge, citing a lack of evidence. Portnoy appealed but ultimately withdrew the case voluntarily. That’s a hell of a lot to bounce back from in the post-#MeToo era, but here we are.

Months ago, I noticed how the mood towards Portnoy, especially among young women, had seemed to shift overnight within my sphere on social media. I observed the importance of a key, four-legged player: Miss Peaches. Miss Peaches is Portnoy’s pit bull adoptee, whom he regularly posts with, about, and, nauseatingly enough, from the perspective of on social media—“Hi, I'm Miss Peaches. My papa rescued me. I went from the outhouse to the penthouse. Now I'm learning how to enjoy the finer things in life.” He speaks in a sweet, high-pitched baby voice reserved only for her. She eats out of Goyard bowls. I saw mutual friends, primarily other women, reposting his content and even more heaps of women commenting on his posts, fawning over his love for the animal. This response seemed in part fueled by the unexpectedness of it—a man who has long held the reputation for treating people with unabated viciousness shape-shifting into America’s Sweetheart for the sake of a dog.

“For everyone telling me to stop spoiling Miss Peaches, I’ll never stop. This girl lived in filth for 6 years; she deserves to be spoiled now,” Portnoy wrote on his socials. I’m reminded of Tony Soprano and the through line of his affection for animals on the show—doling out astonishing cruelty to human beings without a second thought, but maintaining sympathy for pets.

I was curious how significant a phenomenon Portnoy’s image makeover really was, or if I was just being force-fed algorithmic rage bait, distorting the scale of the issue out of proportion. I wanted to hear what women I know personally thought about him. I took to my Instagram following and asked anyone, but particularly women, to reach out and tell me what they thought of Dave Portnoy. Miss Peaches, as I’d suspected, is very popular: some women commended his role in urging his audience to adopt pit bulls, an oft-neglected population in shelters because of their reputation for being innately aggressive. There was also complexity; a few women expressed experiencing cognitive dissonance towards their relationship with Portnoy and Barstool, acknowledging that he wasn’t exactly a boy scout, but they were undeterred from listening or engaging with him or Barstool's content. An old friend from high school had quite a different take, informed by personal experience:

“I’ve been posted a few times on the Barstool Smoke Show page and have never encountered a more hateful, negative, and horrifying community,” describing a slew of nasty comments about her body from the Stoolies. Some women, when I asked if they had any thoughts about his track record with women or the sexual allegations debacle, tiptoed around the question, instead focusing on the positives—his sense of humor, flippant attitude, and yes, his pizza reviews.

The thing that came up the most was the BFFs podcast—hosted by Portnoy alongside two Zoomers who had independently found success on TikTok and were scooped up by Barstool to form the podcast: “The unlikely trio of Josh Richards, Dave Portnoy & Brianna Chickenfry team up to talk all things pop culture, celebrities, influencers & TikTok.” The premise is essentially Richards and LaPaglia (Chickenfry’s real name) summarizing saucy topics du jour online and Portnoy playing the befuddled old guy who just wants to connect with the kids.

Will Leitch

identified this strategy back in 2018 for New York Magazine, writing about the extremely popular and arguably far less douchey hosts of another hugely successful podcast, Pardon My Take, Dan “Big Cat” Katz and Eric “PFT Commenter” Sollenberger,

“These are the ‘nice’ Barstool employees, the ones who give cover to Portnoy and the rest of the Stoolies (...), giving Barstool a more accessible forward face discourages Portnoy and his cronies from ever having to change and allows them to continue to attack female journalists unabated.”

On the BFFs Pod, Portnoy engages with whatever drama plagues the influencer circuit; most subjects are at least twenty years his junior. He has long been kicking his feet like a schoolgirl over Taylor Swift on the podcast, appointed himself as “King of the Swifties,” and assured his audience that Swift’s decision to endorse Kamala Harris would not diminish his affection for her, nor would it swaying him away from his own endorsement of Donald Trump.

I am not one to argue that every piece of media we consume must directly reflect our personal beliefs, morals, or politics—that’s how we as a nation wound up collectively deluding ourselves into believing Ted Lasso was a good show. I’ve written before about the fallacy of expecting model morality from people who, like Portnoy, operate more as brands than individuals. I don’t expect good I don’t expect politics (or any politics, for that matter) from the man at the helm of a sports media conglomerate any more than I expect my dentist to be able to tap dance. However, I am very curious about why or how, at a moment when young women and men in America are fiercely politically divided—with women staunchly backing the left—a man emblematic of the exact culture and ideology they claim to despise can become a figure of adoration. A lot of women who are quick to spout rhetoric about how critically endangered our rights are (rightfully so) and how much those very rights hinge on the results of the upcoming election, are ready with bells on to line Portnoy’s pockets. Particularly when Portnoy is arguably the closest thing to being as influential to young American men as Taylor Swift is to young American women—cult-leader status. Stoolies, Swifties, what’s in a name, right?

Barstool Sports fans. Photo: Sam Greenwood/Getty Images obtained via New York Magazine.

I think the rise in comfortability with Portnoy can be explained by his and his company’s efforts at increasing palatability for female audience, but also in part by what musician Ethel Cain (Hayden Silas Anhedönia) coined last week as the “irony epidemic.” Writing on Tumblr, Anhedönia expressed frustration with her fans being seemingly unable or unwilling to engage with her concept album Preacher’s Daughter and the grisly themes therein (Christianity, sexual violence, cannibalism) without turning it into a joke. She’s not the first to notice: “Gen-Z humor” has been examined and criticized for the way it manifests online for this reason before—there is an unrelenting competition for who can be the most coarse, insensitive, and nihilistic. While the Barstool conservatives have their “anti-PC, anti-woke” agenda, the left has sneering and apathy. This creates the perfect landscape for someone like Portnoy, who in many ways works to meme-ify himself: he’s a sharp-tongued talking head spewing nonsense. He’s an ornament representing Barstool and its culture and therefore can shirk responsibility. Symbols cannot be held accountable.

When

Reeves Wiedeman

reported on some unsavory (and possibly self-incriminating) things Portnoy said on one of his live streams regarding threatening a Barstool advertiser, Portnoy called Wiedeman’s decision to use those quotes “dishonest and intentionally deceptive journalism.”

“Portnoy was accusing me of committing the sin he has ascribed to many of his enemies over the years: taking him seriously,” Wiedeman wrote.

A media company valued at $300 million, catering predominantly to young men, demands to be taken seriously, and so should the person holding the reins. I don’t think listening to a Barstool podcast or liking a TikTok of Portnoy and Miss Peaches makes you a horrible person or a rape apologist. I would, however, encourage people to consider a few things:

1. How public figures manipulate their image online to the point where narratives become warped, causing us to forget (or simply stop caring) about what actually happened.

2. Who do you feel has earned the authority or trust to tell you who to vote for, and why would they like you to vote that way?

3. There’s diversity of thought and holding conflicting beliefs, and then there’s talking out of both sides of your mouth—if you claim to hold the rights and dignity of women so dearly, it may be time to break up with Barstool.