If it were true, as I momentarily considered, that youth culture comes, like the weather, from the west, then an article like this might have a home in New York Times.
It doesn’t.
But if not for that premise, why publish it at all? Is it, indeed, a new phenomenon that bicycles are the mode of transportation du jour for the hip, liberal 18-and-ups? Surely not. Definitely not in northern California. The weather’s too nice. Says so right in the article.
So why — WHY? — would a writer, editor, copy editor, managing editor, or anyone else up the line think we, the supposed intellectual elite, we who follow pop culture like fiends, we who read, we who live and breathe, need another article about bike hipsters?
And what aids the differencing is that few people wear helmets, and everyone is wearing ordinary clothes — none of the sleek and gaudy costumes you see on cyclists pumping through the peninsular hills and whistling down Sand Hill Road to the Caltrain station. They are themselves on wheels.
There is a deeply pleasing randomness about the campus cyclists, as though one morning university officials had assigned a bicycle to every member of the Stanford community, come as you are, without considering for a moment matters of fit — or fitness.
What a rush! Some mouth-breathing yokel in Pennsatucky just dropped a jaw, packed his bags, tightened his belt and went west. Tally-ho!
Except, probably not. Because the guy who read this phone-in on the bikes, the youngs, and the hips probably read yesterday’s piece on the bikes, the youngs, and the hips as well. Probably the one from the day before, too. Might’ve even re-blogged it.
They’re called “newspapers”, or at least they used to be. Now I think its all mostly referred to as “content”. Its a mediocre word that, with alarming regularity, excuses mediocrity in form. It has no value because its supply is unlimited. You can get it for free. You can consume it forever and never be satiated. A steady diet of nothing.
Still, one might assume that news — specifically, the difference between that which is and that which is not — might cross someone’s mind from time to time. But slash the street names, the quip about the weather, and the word “Stanford” and you could cycle this as an article about Brooklyn. Or Portland. Or Seattle. Austin. Chicago. D.C.
Everyone rides the goddamn bike.
So whats your angle, NYT? Who is this for? Was that even a consideration? Is this a money thing? A cheap attempt at marrying your coastal audiences?
Why are you doing this to me?
[New York Times]
The youngs, the west, and their fucking bicycles.
If it were true, as I momentarily considered, that youth culture comes, like the weather, from the west, then an article like this might have a home in New York Times.
It doesn’t.
But if not for that premise, why publish it at all? Is it, indeed, a new phenomenon that bicycles are the mode of transportation du jour for the hip, liberal 18-and-ups? Surely not. Definitely not in northern California. The weather’s too nice. Says so right in the article.
So why — WHY? — would a writer, editor, copy editor, managing editor, or anyone else up the line think we, the supposed intellectual elite, we who follow pop culture like fiends, we who read, we who live and breathe, need another article about bike hipsters?
What a rush! Some mouth-breathing yokel in Pennsatucky just dropped a jaw, packed his bags, tightened his belt and went west. Tally-ho!
Except, probably not. Because the guy who read this phone-in on the bikes, the youngs, and the hips probably read yesterday’s piece on the bikes, the youngs, and the hips as well. Probably the one from the day before, too. Might’ve even re-blogged it.
They’re called “newspapers”, or at least they used to be. Now I think its all mostly referred to as “content”. Its a mediocre word that, with alarming regularity, excuses mediocrity in form. It has no value because its supply is unlimited. You can get it for free. You can consume it forever and never be satiated. A steady diet of nothing.
Still, one might assume that news — specifically, the difference between that which is and that which is not — might cross someone’s mind from time to time. But slash the street names, the quip about the weather, and the word “Stanford” and you could cycle this as an article about Brooklyn. Or Portland. Or Seattle. Austin. Chicago. D.C.
Everyone rides the goddamn bike.
So whats your angle, NYT? Who is this for? Was that even a consideration? Is this a money thing? A cheap attempt at marrying your coastal audiences?
Why are you doing this to me?
[New York Times]