Area city declared 'cute'
The Onion reports:
Boston residents once again hustled and bustled their way into the nation’s hearts this week as they continued playing their adorable little game of "Big City," a live-action role-playing adventure in which Bostonians buzz about their daily routines in a delightful hubbub of excitement as if they lived in a major American metropolis.
Inhabitants of real cities across the nation smiled in affectionate amusement as Bostonians put on their big-city clothes, swiped their Charlie cards for a ride on one of the MBTA's trolley-like subway cars - charmingly called the "T" - and rushed downtown for "important" business meetings at the John Hancock Building, the South Boston Innovation District, and other pretend centers of global industry and commerce.
Comments
It's funny how much time big
It's funny how much time big cities spend telling Boston how little they think about us.
Area man misses point
News at 11
Oh, I think he got it, but
Oh, I think he got it, but did you get his? This article is like taking 2 trains, 3 buses and a cab to cross town in order to knock on someone's door just to say 'I'm ignoring you'.
Its not big cities berating Boston,
its a spoof newspaper: The Onion.
And they're right, Boston is not a world class metropolis, although the city and its surroundings have much to offer.
Now don't start getting all huffy . . .
They're not saying that they
They're not saying that they don't think about us. They're making fun of us. Not the same thing at all.
The Onion does this every couple of months or so
Someone on their writing staff must have gone to college here. Harvard, most likely; or Tufts, because they seem to mention Somerville often.
If I remember correctly, they
If I remember correctly, they actually have an office in Boston. But yes, I believe a lot of their contributing writers are also from Harvard/Tufts/etc, hence the hitting-a-little-too-close-to-home articles about Somerville and Cambridge, like this one: http://www.theonion.com/articles/something-wrong-with-literally-everything-in-apart,19737/
I used to live in that neighborhood
Winter Hill. There's a real Maple Street (but not a real 117 Maple, AFAIK)
I did my time in West Somerville...
... 15 years of it, actually. But only the first one was a tenement :) And after we left, the landlord seems to have gutted it, removed the falling-off-the-front-enclosed-porch, and replaced the remaining windows -- mine blew off during Hurricane Bob.
I was lucky enough to have resident landlords in my next two apartments, which took care of the maintenance issues. Didn't prevent the recurrence of bats flying in from behind the chimney, but hey, I got what I was paying for.
Top of the Hub
Actual Bostonians going to dinner at Top of the Hub? That's not a real thing that happens!
Hey - at least they didn't
Hey - at least they didn't call Mumbles' grand-daughter a c&nt.
Jeez, between Slate and the
Jeez, between Slate and the Onion, what did we do to piss everyone off?
I blame 'Southie Rules'.
The Globe's retort
http://www.boston.com/culturedesk/2013/03/06/the-onion-fake-globe-uncovers/t7S8gjs3Wsmzr2L8gC6ZOO/story.html
Globe scoop
The Onion is fake, and the Globe is ON IT.
Now, that's hard hitting
Now, that's hard hitting journalism!
Wow!
The Globe is, like rubber. And the Onion is glue. Or something. Wasn't that a song? "Glue Onion"?
One of the most charming things about most area college students
who love to mock Boston for not being NY is they generally really do come from small towns.
The green line is kinda cute,though. And there are neighborhoods of Boston, Cambridge,Brookline,Somerville, that look like Sesame Street of Mister Roger's neighborhood.
Haw
When the Globe concludes its faux-humorous soft toss exercise with "When a reporter queried a person entering the Prudential Center and asked if there is a restaurant on top, the man laughed and said, 'That's wicked funny,'" one can almost hear the tortured groans of self-loathing from the poor anonymous journalist forced to crank out such "wit," bemoaning the iniquities of fate that landed him in such a provincial and backwards-thinking little town, full of flinty Jameson addicts in tattered "Garciaparra" jerseys roaming the streets in search of people different from them to harass.
http://gawker.com/5989131/in-search-of-self+deprecation-boston-is-confronted-with-the-reality-that-boston-sucks
and in turn
The Globe piece is a little lame, but the Gawker piece is weirdly bitter. I actually like the onion article because it's hard to tell if they're making fun of Boston or people who make fun of Boston. If you're enjoying life here, who is anyone else to tell you you're not?
Well, If Nobody Else Is Willing To Say It Plainly, I Will
It's funny.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
I laffed.
I laffed.
If you can't laugh at yourself....
You got it, Suldog.
Man, if you can't laugh at yourself, you've got issues.
Actually. . .
Sure, it works as a straight joke ridiculing Boston--if not very intelligently--typical of The Onion being a very smart bunch of folks, it's actually a smart jab at a specific type of solipsistic NYCer (particularly kids that go to school here then move to NYC):
http://bullettmedia.com/article/sorry-but-the-joke-in-the-onion-piece-about-boston-is-actually-on-new-york/
I think that's a stretch.
I think that's a stretch. It's sort of a parody of the typical Hamilton Nolan piece at Gawker, but it wouldn't work if the Boston-related details weren't spot-on, for the most part.
Is one of Boston's nicknames
Is one of Boston's nicknames "The City that Can't Take a Joke"?
I've never seen so many people be so defensive from an article in a fake newspaper.
But that's Boston to a T...heh
Isn't Boston actually the most solipsistic city in the country? "The Hub of the Universe"..."Titletown", etc? It's hard to walk around this city without having a run in with a Babbity little twerp going on and on about how wonderful it is here, as compared with "Insert City Name HERE".
Corrolary Conceit
Kind of the opposite issue, but I'd love to see them do a story on one of the local suburban "towns" with the headline "Heavily populated metropolitan area suburb thinks it is an isolated rural community".
Kind of like my husband's classmates earnestly singing "I was born in a small town", when their "town" had transit lines and more people than all but one city in the state I was raised in. Some people in the city I live in like to play let's pretend like this, too. Ptooey!
Or those kids
who grew up in a middle or upper-middle class enclave in a major city, but act like they grew up in the ghetto?
I knew a girl who went to Boston Latin School who kept going on and on about how ghetto and inner-city her upbringing was, then eventually let out that they were actually wealthy and lived on Beacon Hill.
Did somebody mention BLS?
Kidlet goes there; when somebody from Dorchester learned she's from Roslindale, the girl exclaimed "But that's so ghetto!"
Yes, Roslindale is the new hood.
Time Passage Can Be A Factor
I grew up in Dorchester. If I want, I can relate that fact to certain unaware people and get a sort of retroactive street cred. When I lived there, though, the part of Dorchester I was in was Leave-It-To-Beaverville.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Not a strictly-Boston
Not a strictly-Boston phenomenon, though, of course. I knew a girl who lived in Rancho Palos Verde who told everyone she was from San Pedro.
Mike Watt
I thought Watt was the only person who admitted to being from Pedro. And Adam, if somebody else calls our neighborhood ghetto, that just establishes some street cred for our children. It's only lame if our kids make the claim themselves.
The Atlantic rushes to our defense
Come On, Boston's Not So Bad
At this rate, we'll be seeing a front-page story in the New York Times any day now.
That's really sweet of them
That's really sweet of them to worry about our hurt feelings.
EDIT: Also, it's very tongue-in-cheek and almost damning with faint praise.
Almost?
Actually, I'm now thinking the Atlantic hates us as much as Gawker, they're just more clever about it. Seriously - Jay Leno and Dane Cook as the best comedians to come out of Boston?
I wondered about that, too,
I wondered about that, too, ha ha ha. Maybe they're just the biggest-selling comedians to come out of Massachusetts. Anyway, apropos of Boston entertainers, all the publications missed out bigtime on the opportunity to ridicule us for the Aerosmith vs. That Guy In The Tree From That Movie controversy.
The Atlantic moved out of Boston
and I'm surprised they didn't find some opportunity to mention that.
Well... to be fair. We can
Well... to be fair. We can still link to this Onion article. It makes me feel a little better somehow.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/84-million-new-yorkers-suddenly-realize-new-york-c,18003/
Best LOL Line
"This place sucks," Manhattan resident Woody Allen, 74, told reporters. "It just fucking sucks."
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
This is laugh out loud funny!
This is laugh out loud funny!