ok the dangerous teenage hug epidemic - another important new york times trend piece

(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)

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

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 ...

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.

you get them in the UK, but they don't have this deadly serious capital-J journalism tone.

i think times just gets the most shit on ilx becuase its the only paper most of us read

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.

this is the 2nd most read article on nyt.com.

You realize this is why they keep publishing them, right?

right, well if the nyt wants to aim for page hits above uh, fact-based articles, they can do a lot better than this

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"

(the Heffernan absolutely does that, but I've always felt like a magazine column is the main spot that's acceptable)

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.

but I imagine 50% of the people who read this don't even know what the nyt magazine refers to.

You don't?

http://www.xtcian.com/RonJodiIan2VAWed(bl).jpg

The walls between realities must be getting thin, bowtie guy is clearly alt-world Greg Kinnear.

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/

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.

Perhaps the paywall went up so these people, including commenters, could be more readily isolated and contained.

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

amazing picture with that story