I think the joke was that Variety only used single quotation marks as their scare quotes because they’re half-assing even taking a position on using scare quotes. Normally the US (Variety is a US company) uses double quotation marks unless it’s a quote within a quote.
They only used single quotes to show how on the fence they are about taking any position on anything.
Donald Trump seen “raping” children.
Brown man accuses ICE of “abuse.”
Some people claim this is “spineless journalism.”
Any time most of us read something and hit a single term in quotation marks like that it creates skepticism about the validity of the term being used.
I think the joke was that Variety only used single quotation marks as their scare quotes because they’re half-assing even taking a position on using scare quotes. Normally the US (Variety is a US company) uses double quotation marks unless it’s a quote within a quote.
Ahh, hadn’t noticed that. That’s just poor grammar.