The journalist is not cool. The journalist is a geek, a cloying, smiling pest who writes their limited, Tulane viewpoint as objective because they can lie to an editor and interview an old person. The journalist owes 100 Gs to a private company because they went to school an extra two years to learn how to talk to an old person. "What's happening in my city," you ask the journalist. "What are the kids doing? What's up next?"
"Nothing," the journalist says, "is happening. A city is a collection of miserable old people. These are the most interesting people. The most interesting things happening in your city are the tabletop games old people play in the park. There is no art or fashion, and anything that resembles that is actually rich children of whom I'm afraid. I am terrified of apps where people talk to each other without a Hearst-employed editor present. On the weekends I go to ax-throwing bars with pasty SSRI'd 30-somethings with the sexual dimorphism of World of Warcraft orcs. In two years, I will flee to Arkansas and interview hunters. I will do this because I fixated on this city's past, its history of art and culture, though I find myself blind to anything happening *today* *right now* *in front of me.* I dress like shit and quote-tweet Glenn Greenwald though I couldn't cut it as a political reporter because I wasn't insane or antiabortion or Zionist enough to be the sole leftist on a masthead. So I write confused 'culture' pieces for 2 cents a word at Jacobin, The Baffler°, nplusone, uh...
"Also, everyone who wants to write but isn't a freak is a programmer or died in 2011 or is a barista because the death of the newspaper and the pivot to video and the death of internet ads and the actual pivot to video and the general wage stagnation of the last 50 years means there's no money in it. So it's just losers with bad taste."
"Okay," you say, "but what about Crumps? That nigga is serious."
"He's a party writer. It's giving Purple Magazine."
"You are HATING, bro."
"Anyway, he's a writer. He's not an artist. A lot of writers in the cultural sphere are artists, too. It's so accessible now. You can make a record in your room. You can get a loan for art school in your room. You can get a loan for film school in your room. Why write?"
You put your hand to your chin.
The journalist continues. "2022 Chuck Klosterman is just in a band. One of those Garbage or that old dog. revival bands based around Tompkins Square Park. Based outta Ridgewood. 2022 Ian Cohen is on Pop Wig outta Bloomington, Indiana."
"I wasn't thinking of Chuck Klosterman and Ian Cohen as 'cool guys...'"
"The Village Voice is now a hyperpop label, its journalists now beat-makers and PR spinners."
"Okay..."
"Losers run the world. The Metrograph guy sells ties. Jeremy Scahill is just sus-"
"-Taylor Lorenz keeps her apartment at 90 degrees Fahrenheit."
"Imagine her bills, man..."
"Buzzfeed money."
"From lying about honest, innocent Silicon Valley men?"
"Bro, she wasn't lying about that, it just wasn't the story on Clubhouse. The story was that it was a bad call on where culture was going."
"But Spotify has one and Twitter has one and there's CallIn-"
"Remember Periscope? Remember Snapchat?"
°Randomly the article was sick. Just write about yourself, please! That's all I'm asking! You are not a camera drone or something, you are a person and the people you are talking about know who you are sometimes. This is the power of Crumps. He will go and dap up his subjects. He lets himself like their work, even when he's got strong critique for it. He's a writer and a PERSON and that is endearing for his audience and his subjects.