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British GQ's teen cover star Greta Thunberg upsets masculinity, but not without witty clapbacks from social media users

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Greta Thunberg on the October issue of British Vogue
Greta Thunberg on the October issue of British Vogue

According to The Independent, this award was created especially for the 16-year-old environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, who received her award in London last week at GQ's annual awards ceremony, where honourees are recognised for their outstanding contributions to popular culture, politics and activism by the men's magazine.

Greta's award is therefore a nod to the #FridaysforFuture movement, which garnered much attention and praise last year "when her decision to go on strike from school to raise awareness for environmental issues inspired 1.6 million others around the world to do the same."

READ MORE: Nigerian 12-year-old, Fathia Abdullahi, innovates our wardrobes with a robot that folds clothes 

The editor of British GQ told The Independent that “the Game Changer Award was created for Greta Thunberg. Her fearless dedication to raising awareness of the global climate change crisis makes her the absolute embodiment of this award and on behalf of GQ we couldn’t be prouder to celebrate her at the upcoming GQ Men of the Year Awards.” 

The teen Swede's October issue cover is now her second since her ballsy display of activism for climate change in August last year, as she's appeared on the cover of Time magazine as one of their 100 most influential people

READ MORE: This 21-year-old woman has already written a book, run for office, and is on a mission to end period poverty 

Reading through Greta Thunberg's 12-month strong list of accolades and moments on international podiums including the UN's, it's difficult to not admire her strides (or should we strikes) towards climate change. However, her recent appearance in the British GQ October issue has sparked a sense of indignation from a few social media users. 

But in this thread, many more came to Greta and GQ's defense, swiftly hushing the opinions of naysayers - you know, just another day on Twitter. 

It goes without saying that the handful of outraged social media users has their anger somewhat misdirected. Could it be that they're perturbed by the fact that a 16-year-old teen with Asperger’s is on the cover, thereby not pandering to the male gaze in any way or is it the fact that their quarterly fix of "looking sharp and living smart" is now interrogating the latter part of this slogan in terms of their environmental habits in particular? 

The jury's still out on this one, we guess. 

However, what can be said is that a truly eco-conscious issue of the gentlemen's glossy could have perhaps made one where a climate change activist is on the cover a digital edition in the spirit of saving the trees and the future Greta would like to see. 

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