Trip Report: The Atlantic’s Sponsored Post by the Church of Scientology

My eMeter was working overtime today. Hey mofos, when I clicked on this link over here, I felt like jumping on a couch and screaming about my love for The Atlantic! They really just GOT me as a reader by letting the Church of Scientology pay bajillions of dollars to sponsor this article on their site. On this article, I learned that David Miscavige is a playa who is taking scientology to NEW FREAKING HEIGHTS! LIKE EXPLODING LIKE THAT VOLCANO THEY SHOW IN DIANETICS ADS! Tom Cruise, Jason Lee, John Travolta, they all finally have a place to celebrate on the internet! It’s this ad!

But, you know, the best part? It was going down to the comments, where everyone (except the most recent comments, which seemed confused for some reason) seemed so EXCITED that The Atlantic was giving Scientology the love it deserved, as if they had finally seen the light and had written a glowing critical reassessment of Battlefield Earth in a 20,000-word magazine piece where the lede was “We were wrong.” We get it. L. Ron Hubbard was a visionary. All they had to do was pay The Atlantic a boatload of money to admit it. The Thetans now have a place to play. The haters will go away. All I have to do is reload the page and see the moderators work.

(Seriously, though: What the hell, Atlantic Media?)

EDIT: The Atlantic, clearly catching onto the controversy, took the ad down.

SECOND EDIT: In case you want to see the article in full, here’s a screenshot, taken by Gawker. As it’s a large file, we’re hosting on Dropbox.

THIRD EDIT: The magazine has apologized profusely, starting the apology with the phrase “we screwed up.”