New York City: Let the Backlash Begin

Begin Rant:

Okay, so I should have known better looking at Slate, but I still thought that this article on heavy metal might be interesting and insightful. No such luck.

Yes, it is the one-millionth article on "What are hipsters in Brooklyn doing this month?" Apparently, get this!, they're wearing Iron Maiden tee-shirts. Don't worry- they're still being smug and condescending about it. But, here's an interesting question after I've wasted five minutes of my life reading this- who fucking cares?

I'm sick of it. The publishing capital of the US, hands down, is New York City. And so, most magazines and webzines come from NYC. And since they have to fill space, inevitably they all seem to turn to this same topic- what are hipster trust-fund babies doing this month? Most of the artists got priced out of the city long ago, but there's still rich kids hanging about, working as someone's receptionist and buying clothes and cocaine. Because New Yorkers think that New York is just inherently interesting, there are writers whose entire folder of articles can be summed up as: "I went to a hipster party- here's what they were wearing!"

But, here's the real problem with "What are they doing in Brooklyn this month?" articles: They're never actually doing anything. There's never a new literary movement or an innovative artist or a great thinker. Never anything genuinely creative. Nope, the articles are always about a bunch of poseurs ripping off old Devo records or old 70s rock fashions, but you know, being smug about it. Nothing interesting has come out of Manhattan for at least twenty years, but because of its zip code, I'm supposed to care if hipsters are ironically wearing the tee-shirts that my neighbors are wearing non-ironically.

Let's face it- New York City is boring! And, even worse, people who live there are convinced that it's not boring because, after all, Andy Warhol was there 30 years ago and Henry Miller was there 70 years ago, and blah-blah-blah. So, they don't even try to be interesting- just hip. Just really great shoppers. The reason that it's such a cultural dead zone is that everyone in New York really, really cares what other people think of them, and simultaneously pretends that they don't. New York culture is vapid, stupid, boring, and dead. And yet, I'm supposed to care about "Jewfros" or "Fugly" or "electroclash" or whatever condescending poseur angle is big this month? Please. Give up.

You know what I'd love to read, just once? What's big in Nebraska this month. Or what about Arizona? Or how about someone who's sincerely interested in something. Anything. I'm starving for art and culture, and all I'm finding is a slowly spreading blanket of hipster smugness spreading over the culture and snuffing out every creative impulse.

End Rant.