does she even say how old these people are though?
No, but I'm guessing that a random sampling of her friends is mostly going to include people in her age group (she just turned 40).
― jaymc, Monday, 31 August 2009 23:41 (fifteen years ago) link
uh, that's not that old ... half of my friends are in that age range ...
― what happened? i am confused. (sarahel), Monday, 31 August 2009 23:42 (fifteen years ago) link
"which reads like you're primarily hating on Heffernan for neutrally passing along the friend's tale (which you can do too, obviously)"
It's the whole thing really. It's her friend, but also the way she's casually relating the whole thing. It just rubbed me the wrong way.
― Alex in SF, Monday, 31 August 2009 23:42 (fifteen years ago) link
Blog post on Virginia Heffernan's wedding:http://www.xtcian.com/arch/001618.php
― jaymc, Monday, 31 August 2009 23:42 (fifteen years ago) link
I never said it was. But it probably skews slightly old for Facebook.
― jaymc, Monday, 31 August 2009 23:43 (fifteen years ago) link
That blog post makes me hate her even more.
― Alex in SF, Monday, 31 August 2009 23:43 (fifteen years ago) link
bowtie guy is prob coolest guy on the planethttp://www.xtcian.com/RonJodiIan2VAWed(bl).jpg
― velko, Monday, 31 August 2009 23:44 (fifteen years ago) link
slightly old for facebook doesn't seem to really matter anymore
― iatee, Monday, 31 August 2009 23:44 (fifteen years ago) link
That's her husband, isn't it?
― Alex in SF, Monday, 31 August 2009 23:44 (fifteen years ago) link
xp alex (a few posts back) pretty much, yeah ... the whole thing reads like a hastily compiled list of reasons a few of the writer's friends quit facebook without any real point about generational differences, technological change, or interesting information
bowtie guy looks kinda familiar
― what happened? i am confused. (sarahel), Monday, 31 August 2009 23:45 (fifteen years ago) link
I think bowtie guy is the author of the blog post.
― jaymc, Monday, 31 August 2009 23:45 (fifteen years ago) link
actually - he looks like this douchey guy at my college who wore a suit every day to be "rebellious."
haha yeah okay see maybe this is my deeper issue: some woman gets an email from Heffernan asking why she quit Facebook -- she says oh, I joined cause my hip friend said it was awesome, but then the main application I liked got axed, someone called me old, my stepson got all Facebooked out, and eventually I was like screw it, I'll just play backgammon. this seems relatively normal and non-annoying to me, I guess; it seems like such a touchy bar for calling people out as annoying. I'm being way more annoying right now than that, just not in the Times.
since I'm being annoying I will add value with this actual screencap of "Alex"'s Facebook page and the REAL reason she quit:
http://emailsfromcrazypeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Q6umM-500x392.jpg
― nabisco, Monday, 31 August 2009 23:46 (fifteen years ago) link
I just assumed it was David Samuels. Photo captioning sucks on that thing.
― Alex in SF, Monday, 31 August 2009 23:46 (fifteen years ago) link
xp nabisco: the way you phrased it is far less annoying than the phrasing in the article ...
― what happened? i am confused. (sarahel), Monday, 31 August 2009 23:47 (fifteen years ago) link
nabisco, this also might not be as big a deal if it weren't for the fact that the nyt has been fairly routinely making up fads lately and this fits into that pattern
― iatee, Monday, 31 August 2009 23:48 (fifteen years ago) link
xp - Alex - I doubt that's the douchey suit guy, he just looks like him.
― what happened? i am confused. (sarahel), Monday, 31 August 2009 23:49 (fifteen years ago) link
Scrabulous didn't even disappear, it just became Lexulous instead (with the same app and stats even kept, as far as I can make out).
― Spy in the Cab Sav (Trayce), Monday, 31 August 2009 23:53 (fifteen years ago) link
Oh, multipost.
You are right. David Samuels appears to have an eating disorder like his wife.
― Alex in SF, Monday, 31 August 2009 23:54 (fifteen years ago) link
there were significant changes made when scrabulous became lexulous, at least for users in the USA.
― ian, Monday, 31 August 2009 23:55 (fifteen years ago) link
Also the thing I think silly about this article is more things like
"Another friend, who didn’t want his name used, found that Facebook undermined his whole notion of online friendship. “It’s easy to think of your circle of ‘Friends’ as a coherent circle, clear and moated, when in fact the splay of overlap/network makes drip/action painting a better (visual) analogy.”"
OMG! Online friendships might not be quite like real ones! OMG I spend too much time online and it's full of ads and vapid!
Hello, 2001 called?
― Spy in the Cab Sav (Trayce), Monday, 31 August 2009 23:55 (fifteen years ago) link
is the Bogus Trend Story thing really more prevalent at the Times, or does the Times just catch more public shit for them? (that's a serious non-rhetorical question.) like today the WSJ is getting it over an article about people cutting their own hair.
― nabisco, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:04 (fifteen years ago) link
(I guess the Times's do tend to be more embarrassing, in our world, since they often have to do with trends of hipness or style)
― nabisco, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:05 (fifteen years ago) link
wall street journal trend pieces tend to be WAY worse in my experience--i remember one from last winter about people who wear sneakers at the office--but i think they, uh, suffer from the subtle bigotry of low expectations
― fleetwood (max), Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:06 (fifteen years ago) link
Probably because the Times is the most prominent "serious" paper in the country they get more shit about bogus trend stories ... the SF Chronicle definitely has its fair share ...
― what happened? i am confused. (sarahel), Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:07 (fifteen years ago) link
I do think it's getting more prevalent - and ilx isn't the only one noticing (http://www.slate.com/id/2225301/)
Whether the WSJ / other crappy newspapers do it more often than the Times doesn't particularly matter, and that certainly doesn't excuse the Times for doing it.
― iatee, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:08 (fifteen years ago) link
you get them in the UK, but they don't have this deadly serious capital-J journalism tone.
― caek, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:09 (fifteen years ago) link
i think times just gets the most shit on ilx becuase its the only paper most of us read
― fleetwood (max), Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:11 (fifteen years ago) link
and yeah the chron does it like crazy, but it also doesn't have a great reputation anymore. the nyt is still taken seriously, but if they don't put a lid on this stuff, it's gonna hurt their rep in the long term. this is the 2nd most read article on nyt.com.
― iatee, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:11 (fifteen years ago) link
this is the 2nd most read article on nyt.com.
You realize this is why they keep publishing them, right?
― jaymc, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:12 (fifteen years ago) link
right, well if the nyt wants to aim for page hits above uh, fact-based articles, they can do a lot better than this
― iatee, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:14 (fifteen years ago) link
they're usually spottable insofar as their tone's just weaselly and anecdotal and question-filled, like "could these uncertain indicators and observations maybe suggest that possibly X? Bob Abernathy thinks so, though he admits that statistics are vague; here is an interesting story about some guy that does X and says all his friends do too"
― nabisco, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:15 (fifteen years ago) link
(the Heffernan absolutely does that, but I've always felt like a magazine column is the main spot that's acceptable)
― nabisco, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:16 (fifteen years ago) link
in the print copy, it's pretty obv that there's a difference between the magazine and the newspaper, but the website doesn't particularly highlight that difference. I mean, it says 'magazine' on top, but I imagine 50% of the people who read this don't even know what the nyt magazine refers to.
― iatee, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:19 (fifteen years ago) link
but I imagine 50% of the people who read this don't even know what the nyt magazine refers to.
You don't?
― what happened? i am confused. (sarahel), Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:35 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.xtcian.com/RonJodiIan2VAWed(bl).jpg
The walls between realities must be getting thin, bowtie guy is clearly alt-world Greg Kinnear.
― brookedel, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 08:33 (fifteen years ago) link
Ladies and gentlemen
In her debut column, Virginia Heffernan writes about a series that explores both coal-mining narratives and reality TV.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/mining-reality/
― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Monday, 4 April 2011 13:13 (thirteen years ago) link
Welcome Back Virginia! A wonderful writer that truly understands the digital culture as well as the pop one, i followed 'Screens' & 'The Medium' , and was pleased to see your pic and news of this 'debut' column. Your voice has been missed in it's own space.
― the pinefox, Monday, 4 April 2011 13:44 (thirteen years ago) link
Perhaps the paywall went up so these people, including commenters, could be more readily isolated and contained.
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 4 April 2011 13:47 (thirteen years ago) link
this seems vaguely relevant here
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/the-other-side/william-duncan-state-school-bans-children-from-rolling-up-sleeves-on-jumpers/story-e6frfhk6-1226107452535
― Who? Well, I've never heard of Mogwai. (electricsound), Wednesday, 3 August 2011 22:54 (thirteen years ago) link
amazing picture with that story
― om nom nom nnamdi asomugha (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 3 August 2011 23:30 (thirteen years ago) link