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Everybody’s got to eat. For the modern writer, this means you have to get those page views. As the proud author of "10 NASCAR Drivers Who Get More Women Than Rappers” , I know that of which I speak. It seems that no one on the Internet is immune from fishing for page views, even the nation’s paper of record, The New York Times. Though the Times has done their best to continue their tradition of quality through rigorous journalism and thoughtful criticism, from time to time they also have to write an article or two to keep the lights on. These pieces are usually in a similar wheelhouse; they often tell the story of the most stereotypical of Brooklyn hipsters, the most spoiled young entrants the Manhattan housing market, or the most vague and insulting definition of "millenial." Sometimes, these pieces are so off-the-wall, as was the case with Maureen Dowd's recent experimentation with pot brownies, you imagine the staff of The Onion looking on with admiration as you read through the article. Though you don’t yet see lists about 90s kids or thinkpieces about unfollowing Patton Oswalt put out by the Times, you certainly see some stuff that isn't too far off. Here are The Biggest New York Times Clickbait Articles of the Last Year.
"Millenials At Work: Young And Callow Like Their Parents"
Author: Mitchell Hartman
Published: 3/24/2014
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Best Line: "Robert Boggs is an administrator at Corinthian Colleges in Southern California and has managed several people under 30 on his staff. 'They tend to be very self-absorbed; they value fun in their personal and their work life,' said Mr. Boggs."
If there's a word that drives page views it's "porn." Behind "porn" is probably "Kardashian" or "Bieber." But nipping at the heels of these big three has to be "Millenial." I so badly wanted to include the almost legendary piece "Do Millenials Stand a Chance in the Real World?" but sadly it has been well over a year since the author forgot that she too was young once, and dared to tell anyone about how it is in the "real world." Don't worry though, you'll likely hear a similar diatribe from a relative at Thanksgiving. There is a silver lining to this cloud, however. Dependably, the Times has published another, more recent piece about Millenials not being ready for the "real world." This piece, like the one before it, could easily be retitled "Young People Are Lazy, Say Old People." I guess you can read it for the meaningless statistics and quotes from actual old people, but trust me, you have all you need for your indignant response Thought Catalog post just from the headline.
"The Brooklyn Beard Goes Mainstream"
Author: Alex Williams
Published: 1/8/2014
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Best Line: "To the Brooklyn set, it's an echo of that post-'60s moment when longhair migrated from the muddy fields of Woodstock to crew-cut turf like country music and the National Football League."
Listing all of the things I don't give a shit about would likely take days. But, somewhere on that list, alongside sitcoms from the 90s not named Seinfeld, maintaining friendship with ex-girlfriends, and ever reading the Song of Ice and Fire books is ex-White House Press Secretary Jay Carney's facial hair. But, here I find myself reading an article on that very topic. We discuss beards so much these days that you would think the growing of facial hair on one's chin was as recent an invention as Google Glass. For God's sake, Buzzfeed's "This Man Got Stupidly Hot After He Spent A Year Growing A Beard" was the KONY 2012 of June 2014. This article jumps on the beard bandwagon, arguing that beards have gone mainstream, as though our parents, grandparents, and our great-great grandparents who fought in the Civil War didn't have beards. As it turns out, Mr. Williams tells us, even some assholes in the financial sector and weathermen have beards now. To him I say this: If I could grow a decent beard, I would be shaving it right about now in protest.
"Caught in the Hipster Trap"
Author: Steven Kurutz
Published: 9/14/2013
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Best Line: "The only way to safely avoid looking like a hipster, so far as I can tell, is to dress in oversize mesh jerseys bearing the logos of sports teams. Or to wear the blandest, baggiest, beige-est clothes possible, like a middle-aged tourist. Oh, wait. My girlfriend read a draft of this story and told me mesh jerseys 'are kind of hipster now.'"
"Has there ever been a subculture so broadly defined?" asks Steve Kurutz. To Mr. Kurutz I say, "Probably. but I mean it seems like everyone was hippie in the 60s." This fall seems to have brought an end to hipster trend pieces. Well, that's not quite true. It's more accurate to say that this fall marked the end of the "look what the weird hipsters are doing" pieces and the beginning of "hipsterdom gone mainstream" pieces. Never mind that every subculture eventually goes mainstream. Why acknowledge how culture works when it's much more fun to list all of things that brand you a hipster until you realize you've listed everything that you could possibly love? I'm not sure if it's impossible to escape being branded a hipster as an intellectual urban twenty-something. One thing I do know for sure: it's impossible for the New York Times to stop writing trend pieces about hipsters.
"America The Shrunken"
Author: Frank Bruni
Published: 5/3/2014
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Best Line: "More and more I think we've lost it, and by 'it' I mean the optimism that was always the lifeblood of this luminous experiment, the ambition that has been its foundation, the swagger that made us so envied and emulated and reviled."
This isn't the kind of clickbait that will be tweeted alongside lists of cute animals. This is the kind of clickbait that your uncle forwards to everyone in his office from a mailing list you beg and beg to be removed from, but no one hears your pleas. The great decline of America is usually a topic you only have to suffer through hearing about from Fox News, Aaron Sorkin, and that email forwarding uncle. Broad screeds against the current state of affairs, idealized visions of a time when white men ignored the world's problems and focused on how great they were, cries into our collective beers about a loss of American je ne se quois: pieces like this are the 90s nostalgia list of the Baby Boomer. We pine for the days of Hey Arnold; they pine for the days "when men were men" or some other meaningless nonsense. Bruni spends this op-ed discussing how he has a feeling that America has lost "it," which is to say he doesn't say anything at all. Despite the lack of content, many middle class, middle-aged suburban folk were able to shake their head and throw up their hands while reading the article. Some of them may have even shook their fist at those damn kids on their lawn. If, as I age, I pine for the days when gays couldn't get married, women made less than men, and the poor were blamed for their own poverty, please don't let me write op-eds: I don't want to embarrass my future children.
"Confessions of A Tiger Couple"
Author: Jennifer Szalai
Published: 1/29/2014
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Best Line: "Spending time with Chua and Rubenfeld, I was periodically reminded of something Stanley Cavell once wrote - that the defining moment in a screwball comedy comes when the oddly matched pair find themselves in a 'mythical place' called Connecticut. "
The obsession with the Tiger Mom feels like ancient history now, which certainly says something about our disposable media cycle. But, a couple years ago, the Tiger Mom was the Grumpy Cat of the suburban over forty set. Parents could use the Tiger Mom to justify any parenting style, because no matter how lax or disciplined a hand you take with your kids, you likely sounded sane compared to her. Amy Chua's book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom also provided some solidly mediocre pseudo-scientific book club fare to spell groups between 50 Shades and the new Malcolm Gladwell. It shouldn't surprise you that a search for "Tiger Mom" on the Times website returns over three hundred results.
The Times checked in our the Tiger Couple yet again last January. They had a perfectly fine reason to do so. Chua had just teamed up with husband Jed Rubenfeld on a new book, The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America. The Times profile though was more interested in a where are they now? story of Tiger parenting than the new book. The article has the feeling of a reality show reunion special. More time is spent on angry emails Chua received as a result of Tiger Moming than the finer points of the "triple package". The story of the Tiger Mom hits a sweet spot for Times readers, which author Jennifer Szalai readily acknowledges. Szalai says that The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom taps into "bad mothers and declining national fortunes." It seems there is nothing that boomers fear more than lazy children and Chinese economic power. As long as the Tiger Mom helps exercise those demons, there may be more 4,000 word profiles where this one came from.
"For Millenials, A Generational Divide"
Author: Sheila Marikar
Published: 12/20/2013
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Best Line: "You know them when you see them. They are tapping on their smartphones, strolling into work late and amassing Instagram followers faster than a twerking cat. They complain. They 'disrupt' stuff. They simultaneously (and somewhat improbably) like both Kanye West and Kenny Chesney."
I mentioned earlier that “Tiger Mom” is going to net you a few hundred results if you search the New York Times website. “Millenials” is going to return you a cool 2,000. Publications aimed at middle-aged folks demonize Millenials like your great-aunt demonizes minorities. I would provide a summary of this piece, but as a lazy Millennial, I’ll just let you remember the blurb for the other piece about Millenials, as this one says essentially the same thing with a few less statistics.
"Normcore: Fashion Movement or One Huge In-Joke"
Author: Alex Williams
Published: 4/2/2014
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Best Line: "Are they ahead of him on the fashion curve? Hopelessly behind him? The first question is whether they are on their way to a job whipping up absinthe-infused cocktails at Freemans, or grilling bacon-Cheddar burgers at TGI Friday's."
As usual, the New York Times trendpiece writers jumped right out in front of a trend ... a few months after everybody else. By the time the Times got around to talking about Normcore, your aunt had already emailed you asking about this New York Mag piece. This, of course, is brilliant strategy on the part of the Times. They can service the out of touch parents curious about what's going on in the big city while generating ironic page views from people like us marveling at just how behind the curve they are. This article takes a new stance at far as NYT trendpieces go. Author Alex Williams asks if Normcore is a real thing or an elaborate joke being played on the rest of the country by the hipster set? Yes, he takes the Bigfoot approach to Normcore and asks us if Normcore actually even exists. Though I would only consider myself fashion adjacent, I am close enough to tell you that Normcore is very very real. That being said, I feel I must give credit where credit is due. By time I finished reading Williams' article, I was asking myself if maybe Normcore was just a figment of my imagination this whole time.
"Found, A Soul Mate"
Author: Lois Smith Brady
Published: 9/20/2013
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Best Line: "He and Ms. Halweil, who was a nutrition major at New York University, also spent many afternoons in her kitchen, whispering over long meals while Milla napped. 'This is one of the ways I seduced her: I would cook all the time at her cottage,' said Mr. De Rosa, who is so knowledgeable about food he can tell you what to eat to feel more grounded, to get over a broken heart or to sleep better."
The New York Times Wedding Section has been trolling since before there was trolling. Nothing quite matches the righteous anger you can stir up in yourself while reading about multi-million dollar nuptials in the Hamptons. Mocking the Times' wedding coverage fits so well into sites that traffic in Internet snark that a cottage industry has sprung up around taking the piss out of the Ivy Leaguers and Old Money that populate these pages. If you only care to indulge in one Times wedding mocking destination, Katie Baker's Wedded Blitz over at Grantland is by far the GOAT.
Pretty much every New York Times wedding piece is written to facilitate maximum trolling, but this is one of the greatest achievements to come out of the Vows section in recent memory. They are both Yoga teachers. They were married in Montauk. He used to be a Williamsburg party boy. Her best friend and confidant is an art dealer. Juice cleanses are discussed. They were married under a "hand-carved, wood arbor." I could go on and on until I've highlighted a portion of every sentence in the article. There is more new-agey bulshit crammed into this article than you can find in every Bushwick yoga studio combined. Namaste.
"Don't Harsh Our Mellow, Dude."
Author: Maureen Dowd
Published: 6/13/2014
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Best Line: "I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall."
It takes some Googling to find this piece. Googling "Maureen Dowd" and "Weed" returns pages of indignant responses from Salon, Jezebel, New York Mag, and the rest of the usual snark suspects. You'll also get marijuana advocates attempting to correct Dowd's rather one-sided view of the burgeoning weed industry. Don't worry you guys, I navigated my way to the source in short order. Few writers are more widely trolled and snarked upon than the New York Times Opinion Writers. Dowd, Frank Bruni, Thomas Friedman, and David Brooks are the Four Horsemen of the Boomer Apocalypse as far as young, hip publications are concerned. These guys might suffer more new journalism takedowns than Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck. Though I normally think criticism of these op-ed writers is far too harsh, articles like this don't do them any favors.
The premise for Dowd's piece is that she ate a whole edible and felt weird, and therefore marijuana is dangerous. I myself am a weed novice, so I can relate to the sweating paranoia of a already slightly neurotic person trying to sleep off a pot brownie. My evening with spinning thoughts and fuzzy legs didn't lead me on the war path against weed cookies however. Dowd takes her inexperience and frames it as a social crusade. She wrote, "But the state is also coming to grips with the darker side of unleashing a drug as potent as marijuana on a horde of tourists of all ages and tolerance levels seeking a mellow buzz." Rarely do the Letters to the Editor of my hometown newspaper the York Daily Record and the Times Op-Ed page share common ground. But, it seems, on the topic of irrational fear of marijuana, they're on the same page.
"Weed: Been There Done That"
Author: David Brooks
Published: 1/2/2014
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Best Line: "For a little while in my teenage years, my friends and I smoked marijuana. It was fun. I have some fond memories of us all being silly together."
Before Maureen Dowd embarrassed her way to a viral article with her pot brownie incident, David Brooks did the same thing with his essay about why he's glad he stopped smoking weed. The only way that Brooks could have more strongly taken the position of a square would have been to begin his essay with, "I swear I'm not a cop, but ..." Brooks poked many a sleeping stoner with his assertion that habitually smoking marijuana stops you from becoming the kind of person you should want to become. His exact words were, "In legalizing weed, citizens of Colorado are, indeed enhancing individual freedom. But they are also nurturing a moral ecology in which it is a bit harder to be the sort of person most of us want to be." There is an aspect of this that has to make you feel good though. We live in such progressive times that a stodgy, poorly informed dad rant counts as trolling.
"Why Actors Act Out: James Franco on Shia LeBouf's Recent Antics"
Author: James Franco
Published: 2/19/2014
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Best Line: "I hope - and, yes, I know that this idea has pretentious or just plain ridiculous overtones - that his actions are intended as a piece of performance art, one in which a young man in a very public profession tries to reclaim his public persona."
The Times is known for their love of op-ed stunt casting. When someone like Vladimir Putin pens an op-ed, the sound of page views mounting is drowned out by the drums of war, but Franco on LeBeouf feels like more TMZ than NYT. Yet, here we are: James Franco trying his hand at yet another form we would prefer he didn't. Franco's defense of LeBeouf focuses on the actor's relationship with his image. He makes some solid points about the outsized focus on the actors as compared to their role in a given work. Sure, the writing is a bit clunky, and he compares Brando and LeBeouf which feels like a bit of a stretch, but the guy is writing from the heart. Though it isn't bad, this piece has the feel of a quick blog post that belongs on a website landing page or personal Tumblr. There is nothing special about the piece beyond the man the wrote it, and the attention that comes with him.
"How I Became A Hipster"
Author: Henry Alford
Published: 5/1/2013
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Best Line: "While waiting at the cash register, I picked up a pair of argyle wool socks from a nearby wicker basket and asked, "Are your socks local?" The salesman self-consciously said no. I returned the socks like an organic farmer who has learned that a friend has named her child Monsanto."
This one was published just over a year ago now, but it is one of our favorite Times trendpieces in recent memory. The mixture of cluelessness and clickbaiting is a thing of beauty. Author Henry Alford wrote about crossing the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan in much the same way that Colonel Kurtz might have written about journeying into deepest Africa. By eating kale and wearing flannel, Alford felt he was going native. To be fair to Alford, there is a level of self-seriousness in the article that feels satirical. Nonetheless, there is a slice of earnestness here, a need to bring back tales from Bohemia for the surburban Connecticut subscriber base that stops you from letting Alford totally off the hook.
Regardless of where Alford meant to fall on the continuum between serious and satirical, this is bonafide click bait. References to kale, fixies, moustaches, Mumford & Sons, and Girls make this article an SEO dream. The almost arrogant cluelessness made this piece the scourge of younger, hipper sites like Salon, Slate, and the like, where writers who will some day grow old and clueless and work for the Times currently ply their trade. Though there was a lot of anger over this piece, the Gawkers and Buzzfeeds of the world could learn something from this articles approach to hostile audience engagement.
"One Part Mr. Peanut, One Part Hipster Chic: The Monocle Returns As A Fashion Accessory."
Author: Allen Salkin
Published: 3/5/2014
Give It Another Click
Best Line: "The one-lensed eyepiece, an item favored by 19th-century military men, robber barons and Mr. Peanut, is finding itself wedged anew into the ocular sockets of would-be gentlemen seeking to emulate the stern countenances of their stuffy forebears."
This opening line is up there with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The line is so good it’s almost enough to make you forget that you aren’t actually seeing dudes rocking monocles out in these streets. Perhaps author Allen Salkin had stumbled on a steampunk convention and took it for a fashion show. Maybe he mistook the cast of a murder mystery dinner theatre for a group of hip Brooklynites. Wherever he got wind of this trend, sadly, Mr. Salkin was misinformed. We assure those of you in who reside in less hip areas of the country that the monocle is not making a comeback. Though, as far as we - and many others on the Internet - could tell, this article had no basis in reality, it still ruffled a lot of feathers, which might have been the whole point.
"Sex on Campus: She Can Play That Game Too"
Author: Kate Taylor
Published: 7/12/2013
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Best Line: "Now, she said, she and her best friend had changed their romantic goals, from finding boyfriends to finding 'hookup buddies,' which she described as 'a guy that we don't actually really like his personality, but we think is really attractive and hot and good in bed.'"
If you'll recall, many blogs (perhaps most vocally, Jezebel) were not happy with this one. Though Jezebel and I have different levels of intensity when it comes to the Photoshop wars, on this point, we agree. The premise of this overlong and naïve article is that *gasp*, women are down with hooking up. This is something I discovered shortly after starting college, and something I continue attempting to re-discover as often as possible. Something that every college student intimately understands required intensive research by the Times. Sixty female undergrads were interviewed on just how down with hooking up they were. The findings were shocking. As it turns out, young women enjoy having sex. Well, not with you, but generally, they enjoy it.
Taylor does her best to pitch the piece as a point-counterpoint, but ultimately she ends up with almost every interview subject saying they are down with hook-ups and don't see what the big deal is versus a lame anti-feminist with an undeserved book deal. There are moments where some serious issues are discussed. Rape is briefly touched upon. The changing nature of relationships in a career-driven society is discussed. There is a glance at the more conservative morality of less affluent neighborhoods, and how poorer students go to college as cultural fishes out of water. Ultimately, the article turns back to the simple click-friendly space of, guess what, women like casual sex. Yeah, dog, I know. That's why I downloaded Tinder.
"An Advanced Degree in Quiet: A Student Apartment Near Union Square"
Author: Joyce Cohen
Published: 1/29/2014
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Best Line: "'It seemed like the potential for a really stressful situation for me if I woke up late and had to wait for the train,' she said."
This last winter was the worst for New York in recent memory. By late January, New York's twenty-something were already cranky and cold. Winter was still far from over and it seemed that every day was filled with landlord arguments about heat or yet another train missed thanks to walking on iced over sidewalks. Young New Yorkers were looking for something to be angry about besides the cold and this article gave it to them.
Rarely are my New York friends in lock-step regarding what they're posting on social media. The only other times I've seen this much unity was when the Onion dropped this article and when Beyoncé dropped her unannounced album. In the bleak midwinter of 2014, New Yorkers came together to resent Vanessa Csordes-Jenkins. Vanessa is an undergraduate at NYU, which already makes her a prime target of resentment for legions of twenty-somethings who moved straight from less prestigious state schools to the less savory parts of Bushwick and Bed-Stuy to compete with her for internships. Lines like "For a place that was quiet, bright and within walking distance of N.Y.U., her budget, funded by her parents, was $1,850 a month." didn't help matters.
The frozen youths of Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Jersey united to rage against this article. Ms. Csordes-Jenkins' story became a platform for real stories from people with real problems. I still remember stories of friends who were evicted and weren't given time to recover all of their possessions. I remember stories of friends waking up with human shit in their shower after the super had taken some shortcuts with plumbers. I remember stories of friends with sexually aggressive slumlords who stayed because the rent was just too good. I remember that the people I know didn't have too much sympathy for Ms. Csordes-Jenkins, and they took to social media to tell us exactly why.
