Stretching the already paper-thin conceit that jamming the word "hipster" into your headline will drive page views to its excruciatingly embarrassing conclusion, a Reuters article today about a gas shortage in Brooklyn in the wake of the hurricane has brought the concepts of both hipsters, and news reporting in general, to their internetty nadir.
In hipster Brooklyn, a fuel terminal padlocked as drivers steam trumpets the headline, which I'm still not entirely sure is real -- Checking website hold on... Reuters.com... that's the thing, right? Jesus, Reuters? The trusty, reliable staid old impartial news service? -- over a picture of, sure enough, the padlocked terminal in question. Nowhere in sight, however, are hipsters, or anything even remotely associated with them. That doesn't stop them from trying to shoehorn the neighborhood's vaunted hipness into the piece for no reason anyone, including the reporters, editors, or readers, will likely ever fully comprehend.
"As drivers in Sandy-battered New York sit steaming in long lines to buy gasoline, a small fuel terminal on a remote road in a trendy Brooklyn neighborhood lies idle, gates padlocked - mute testimony to the root of the energy crisis now gripping the city."
And then, just like that, the hipsters are gone, never heard from again throughout the rest of the piece, which is literally just a dry news story about how fuel can't be delievered. I kept expecting there to be at least some tendentious hook, like, maybe the hipsters in question are banding together into some sort of gas collective, say, or, I don't know, doing something with their damn idiot bikes that we're always reading about. But no. Hipsters in Brooklyn don't even drive cars, last I heard.
I think they might end up getting their wish anyway with this piece. So many people are going to share it and talk about how ridiculous it is it's bound to generate a lot of traffic.
And then, just like that, the hipsters are gone, never heard from again throughout the rest of the piece, which is literally just a dry news story about how fuel can't be delievered. I kept expecting there to be at least some tendentious hook, like, maybe the hipsters in question are banding together into some sort of gas collective, say, or, I don't know, doing something with their damn idiot bikes that we're always reading about. But no. Hipsters in Brooklyn don't even drive cars, last I heard.
I think they might end up getting their wish anyway with this piece. So many people are going to share it and talk about how ridiculous it is it's bound to generate a lot of traffic.
brought to you by
4 comments:
It's Brooklyn, after all. EVERYONE knows that Brooklyn is just a synonym for Hipster.
But more nefarious things are afoot than a simple misuse of a trendy word. I've always maintained that the next major crisis to strike the world will be an energy crisis. This is just the tip of the iceberg. (/doom & gloom>
Dude. For real. Since I quit street carnage, this has become my go to site for alternative news that isn't run by retarded neocons. It's great but this is not the content churning superpower that is street carnage. Need more writers? probably...Readers. probably. Should I just go to Bullett or something? Or back to Vice? wah.
Thanks, I think? What exactly are you getting at though? You want to write something? I'm always open to guest posts.
I do expend most of my blogging energy at Bullett these days, since, you know, $$
And p.s. there are only 4 bars inbrooklyn to reliably find hipsters. That is out of about 500 bars.
Post a Comment