Gawker
Remember the famous "West Bushwick" item from last year? It started as a post by Doree Shafrir in response to a story Cornell student Erin Geld wrote for the Daily Sun, the littlest Ivy college's student paper. Geld stayed with friends in a nonexistant neighborhood she referred to as "West Bushwick" for the weekend and was overwhelmed and intimidated by her perceived coolness of it all. She marveled at the big lofts, the "spooky lots and the occasional shady passerby," and the fashion parade of Bedford Avenue. She came to the conclusion that she wasn't sure if she would be able to handle living in such a crazy place after graduation! Well, guess what: now you've gone and done it. In Newsweek, the same writer blogs that because of the response to the "rather neutral" item on this website, her column was "TORN apart" in our commenting section, a "New York hipster club." This "hipster attack" from commenters "managed to chase me to California."
The day my Brooklyn column ran, it was picked up by the notoriously nasty Gawker.com, where it was TORN apart in its commenting section, a New York hipster hub. (You have to be pre-approved just for the right to comment, making it a bizarre online club.)Anyway, she moved to San Francisco, and it's so much better! Screw you, Williamsburg, Gawker commenters, and hipsters:
A brief, rather neutral note about my piece was followed by an explosion of scathing retorts, such as: "Gag. Please DON'T move to BK. We don't want you either." It hurt. I took every mean comment to heart. In two years of writing easygoing columns about local demolition derbies and ratty old hotels, I had received a steady stream of sweet e-mails but never really made any waves. This tsunami of attention was utterly insane.
I recently reviewed the comments, and as far as I can tell, what pissed these readers off was: 1) "West Bushwick," as I had called my friends' neighborhood, is apparently just some real-estate/hipster-neighborhood-renaming conspiracy that Insiders otherwise know as "East Williamsburg," which, according to said Insiders, sucks. 2) I had, without a smidgen of irony, announced I was moving to Brooklyn because it was cool. Which is, obviously, a very uncool thing to do.
"I eschewed the Ithaca-to-Williamsburg trend and went west to San Francisco. It is, surprisingly, almost more packed with bandanna babies than Brooklyn. They lounge in Dolores Park with organic sandwiches and two-buck Chuck as if it were stale bagels and PBR on Bedford Avenue.Hipster Attack Revisited: Why I'm Scared of Brooklyn [Newsweek Online]
They are similar: name-dropping obscure bands, writing novels "secretly" and being endearingly vain. But in the Mission's sweet-smelling cloud of tolerance, hipsters are relaxed and just a bit more lovable. Being from somewhere else is a good thing. It's expected, interesting. There's no convenient Internet venue through which to pick on people, as they lick their own outsider wounds. Instead, people comment on restaurants and farmers' markets. They're usually nice. Helpful. Memories of 1967 still linger in the Bay Area, and people are a little goofy for my East Coast taste. But, thank God, they don't take themselves very seriously—they're way cool with being cool.
Comments
Well surely everyone will reasonably accept her point of view.
She's part of a glorious tradition: chicks like her have been ruining the Mission since the mid '90s.
@Clarence Rosario: Nah, bet she moves to the Tenderloin.
@Clarence Rosario: That's why I left SF in 1996. There were so few artists or bohemians left in the Mission, it was seriously depressing.
Fuck the pesky business sense that led to the recent downsizing. Gawker must launch something for San Francisco (other than Valleywag) JUST TO TORMENT THIS GIRL. Because that? That is the best business sense ever.
I read the tag of this post and my mind did this:
CORNEL WEST BUSHWICK
And for a moment I was more scared/excited than I've ever been in my life.
Oh, Erin, you're so silly. You think CA is safe from the grasp of evil Gawker commenters? Call me when you're in LA. I'll change your mind.
And who said that Gawker never provides a useful service?
servicey!!!
@WackoJacko: I thought for a second "Oh no, is Dr. West moving to Bushwick to "really focus" on his music career? [www.amazon.com]
Yeah right? Whatever that you made up a neighborhood! It's not like you're a journalist or anything.
Well, one down.
@WackoJacko: Circa 1/15/08
Open Caption: Unfrozen Caveman Scholar
It's cool that she learned to hate keffiyehs though, I'll give her that.
She forgot to add that she didn't even WANT to be our friends ANYWAY! So THERE.
I'm in a club! I always wanted to be in a club!!
This girl speaks the truth.
Last time I dared eat an "organic sandwich" (plucked right from the sandwich tree!) and shitty wine anywhere near Bedford Avenue, I had to run for cover when a sweet-smelling cloud of tolerance erupted from out of nowhere, consuming everything in sight. Luckily I was able to make an ad hoc shield out of garbage, homeless people and internet commenters with bad attitudes under which I could lick my outsider wounds and prevent myself from being infected with the good vibes, dude.
You know, sometimes I think we are a little harsh, but then I visit 4chan and am reminded that we're all pretty much fucking saints comparativly.
Oh also? It's not proper to drink beer in the park with babies. Even in SF.
@Obviously Not Omniscient: Damn, brotha is BUSTED!
Well in the year since I graduated from college, I have lived in NY and SF, and I do appreciate the fact that unlike in NY, "being from somewhere else" is totally welcomed and appreciated here.
Unfortunately, I think most people here are sort of dumb and most people here think I'm a bitch. So there are downsides.
@metoometoo: my time in SF left the lasting impression that they have the nicest panhandlers anywhere.
Brooklyn deserves whatever Brooklyn gets.
'You have to be pre-approved just for the right to comment, making it a bizarre online club'
Yeah but you have to suck a lot of dick to get a star making it a bizarre online brothel.
@metoometoo: Did you really find that being from somewhere else wasn't welcomed and appreciated in NY? I objected to that when I read the article, so I'm kind of surprised to hear it echoed. Most of the people I know, no matter how many decades they've been here, consider themselves "from somewhere else" and as for the population at large, I've always found people really perk up when you mention you're from somewhere else - provided that you put the good side forward in the mentioning. Just saying a city name and looking away awkwardly isn't going to get the job done.
@fileunder: Cheap *wine* not beer. Way classier and totally fine by me--especially in SF.
@BullfightsOnAcid: I don't think that makes it a "bizarre" brothel. Just a normal one.
Then again, the original didn't apply that adjective appropriately either, I don't think. She implied that being let into the club is the element that makes it bizarre. That's hardly abnormal for a club. The bizarre part might be that the goings-on of the "club" are made public. We're not laughing at you behind your back, we're laughing at you to your face.
Then again, I don't think she got the "club" part right either. I don't feel like I belong to a club, I don't pay dues and haven't pledged to do anything or follow any specific rules other than those that govern all enlightened human conversation. I don't even "know" a single other person on here (that I'm aware of).
Nit-picky and semantical, yes I am. I'm highly annoyed by whining, no matter how much of it I might do myself.
@Zorica: Well...I don't think that non-native New Yorkers are brutally ostracized and abused or anything like that, but there is definitely a snobbery in terms of how long one has been in New York, how well one knows the city, etc. I am from north Jersey, am not a guidette, and know the city pretty well, so I have never really felt like an outsider in New York. (Although the whole B&T thing gets old.) But I definitely have observed that attitude.
It never bothered me or anything, I was just startled to notice a total absence of that attitude in San Francisco.
Despite the fact that I don't know the city or its neighborhoods or its history at all, nobody ever scoffs at my geographical ignorance. I have found that people here think their city is awesome, but they aren't snobs about it.
Oh, and by the way, I think you are right that people perk up when you mention you're from somewhere else...IF you're from somewhere "cool" or you have a fun accent or something.
@metoometoo:
"I do appreciate the fact that unlike in NY, "being from somewhere else" is totally welcomed and appreciated here..."
Almost 40% of people living in New York were born outside the U.S.
So, I'm not quite sure what you expected from New York in terms of appreciation and welcome.
I think the city officially stopped throwing big "We Welcome & Appreciate YOU!" parties for newcomers sometime in the mid-1660s.
@BullfightsOnAcid:
It's virtually suck, okay?
When you truly suck, they don't give you a star.
@valarmorghulis: I'm pulling for Hunter's Point. You know, because she "loves the ghetto".
@metoometoo: Not really. In SF, the B&T scorn is squarely directed at the Peninsula and East of the Caldecott.
@seejanewrite:
Oh shoot, right - I forgot 2 Buck Chuck is a wine. But please, not with the babies.
She should hang out in my hood, the SOMission.
Who the fuck is eating stale bagels?
@metoometoo: The B&T thing wouldn't exist if a majority of B&Ts didn't behave like illiterate hyenas.
@HiredGoons: regular hyenas. Hyenas can't read. Fuck me...
I have spent many weeks in San Francisco and I can say that it is one of the most boring cities in the world,she'll just fit right in.
I told people for years that I lived in East Chelsea just north of the North Village and I swear no one ever questioned it.
@valarmorghulis: They also have the strangest breed of scalper I have ever seen, coming from Boston/NY/Philly.
"There's no convenient Internet venue through which to pick on people, as they lick their own outsider wounds."
Seriously Polyanna, thank god we can't still comment about you, and your use of phrases like "bandanna babies." Because if I could, man, I'd rip you a fucking new one.
An update from the past, everyone!
[gawker.com]
good for her.
I've been waiting for post-irony to catch on.
hey maybe your article wouldn't have been torn apart if you went to a decent school.
@metoometoo: people perk up when you mention you're from somewhere else...IF you're from somewhere "cool" or you have a fun accent or something.
I'll give you that. But I think a lot of it is in the presentation. You can make almost anywhere sound exotic, as long as you capitalize on either the strengths or else the horrors of the place. I once heard a gal describe her hometown as "at a crossroads between Beat-Your-Wife and Fuck-Your-Son." I, for one, was totally charmed.
@rosaluxembourgeoise:When you truly suck, they don't give you a star.
oooooh what do they give you, then? Other than the obvious, I mean. Don't give me that "service is its own reward" speech. I only fall for that once a week.
@valarmorghulis: 4chan corrupted some guy's chatbot. Now it only speaks in racial slurs and words with -fag appended to them. Brooklyn, on the other hand, remains relatively unharmed, except for the end-of-semester exodus of new flesh.