6 Underreported Reasons Why The NY Times Totally Sucks

Sometimes, the opulence comes with a delicious hint of scandal:

Would you believe this paean to a love that triumphed in the face of other spouses somehow suffered a backlash? Look, relationships are tough, and sometimes divorce happens. We get it. But maybe don't write a glowing tribute to how you were able to overcome the pain and criticism you endured from breaking up each other's marriages.

Oh, and the gifts. Sometimes there are gifts.

Sorry folks, if you've never given a goat to seal the approval of your in-laws, your love doesn't count. You're not going to find any gushing wedding announcements for blue-collar tradespeople in the wedding pages of the NYT, because in their world, weddings don't exist unless they have celebrity DJ booths, Givenchy loot bags, and fair-trade cocaine bars.

But don't worry -- even despite these limitations, a sense of journalistic integrity remains:

Journalism, folks. The future of our republic depends on it.

This is from an article about how hilarious it is to wear Trump's hats. "Sure, he's emboldened people to express their hatred of women and minorities, but check it out, I'm wearing one of his hats ironically! Get it?!"

"Get it?"

Let's move on to an even more controversial subject: man buns. Centuries ago, European explorers wrote accounts of their adventures to exotic foreign lands with less flowery prose than the NYT uses to write about man buns. For those unfamiliar with it, the man bun is a hairstyle worn almost exclusively by white guys talking about yoga, but the Times has somehow convinced itself they are a profound form of expression.

For a certainty, brave top-knotted warriors once risked their lives in a dangerous, sword-filled world, and now we who pull espresso shots and can't afford regular haircuts are their spiritual successors.

There's something pretentious for you too, ladies:

A good rule of thumb is that, whenever a headline poses a question, the answer to that question is no. This is especially true if the question is fucking stupid.

That is an absolutely real article earnestly extolling the social capital to be gained in today's society by wearing a fucking monocle for no fucking reason whatsoever.

And finally we bring you to this, in which the Times crawls directly up its own asshole to discuss how trendy it is to wear normal clothes.

If you hadn't heard, normcore is the term when otherwise fashionable people opt for bland clothes, the kind that you might find in (shudder) a store with shopping carts. There's another, more common term for "Normcore," New York Times. It's called "wearing affordable clothes you like without making a pretentious cultural statement because you don't have disposable income to waste on fancy bullshit."

Consider this graduate student struggling with high rent:

Aw, you poor thing, throwing away your money on something as frivolous as rent. Look, if you have advantages, take them; we won't hold it against you. We aren't all filthy communists here at Cracked.

But for the love of Midas, at least acknowledge your cosmic privilege. Don't present it as an inspirational story of triumph and maturity, not when so many of the rest of us are struggling to enter the housing market with the help of our regular, poor parents.

To be fair, the NYT also covers the house-hunting adventures of people who are self-sufficient go-getters, no longer reliant on any financial support but their own. Like this person, who rented a $2,350 a month apartment to serve as a "base" while searching for a second apartment to drop 600 grand on and then immediately tear apart and renovate. Or the tragic story of a woman with a budget of 800 grand and a dream of living in New York's financial district. But, unable to find something suitable in her near-million-dollar price range, she had to settle for a corner apartment in the Upper East Side for a thrifty $650,000.

Thank goodness an entire generation has rediscovered how knives are used. Keep reading for the Times' scintillating coverage of how washing machines are a huge improvement over beating your clothes with rocks. Also, we should be clear that, because this is The New York Times, these aren't just regular pocketknives we're talking about, like some poor person might own. These are designer knives. Like the Sebenza 21, which will set you back a cool 350 bucks, plus an extra $195 if you want the blade made of Damascus steel (compared to the exactly as functional $30 pocketknife from Walmart, but you have to supply your own pretentiousness).

Which brings us to beards. Growing a beard isn't necessarily pretentious -- it's a totally justifiable grooming choice many men make. But according to The New York Times, growing a beard is the biggest goddamn deal in history. They devote pages-long examinations about the trials of poor, wispy lads who are tragically unable to grow full beards. For example, here's a chronicle of a man's attempt to grow a beard, which is inexplicably in The New York Times and not a teen boy's LiveJournal. And here's a 1300-word essay on the travails and tragedies of the beardless life, one that kicks off with a Walt Whitman reference.

You'll be happy to know the Times has more to say on masculinity, using a list-based format first popularized by far lower-browed publications.

Is this a big problem? It feels like the author is passive-aggressively settling a really particular score here. Oh wait, there's more.

Wow, the modern man sounds like a dickhead.

Uh-huh. Hey, just remember when you're over at the modern man's apartment, partaking in the sterling commentary on modern masculinity that is 2006's Miami Vice, not to ask for a Sprite, lest he kick you out and call you a prole.

This has to be gearing up to be critical, right? Surely this will be one of those quietly judgmental looks at the hollow emptiness of privileged life, dripping with bitterness and scorn.

Nope! It's pretty much just a roll call of brand names and drink orders, an epic story of rich kids who design expensive clothes to sell to other rich kids so they have something to wear when they buy expensive drinks and design clothes together. It's like their reporters skimmed The Great Gatsby, missed the point entirely, and set out to write a modern version of the party scenes.

Fuck you. They're talking about a book club here. Some 20-somethings in New York started a book club, where they discuss books using very big words. They also have a website. Apparently all it takes for the Times to write an ego-stroking essay for your benefit is to be an attractive white person, call your book club a "salon," and jabber about poststructuralism on a website. It's so transparent that we might as well start calling it "ego-hacking."

The implication behind all of these is that if you don't wake up with the dawn to meditate before taking in half a dozen cultural sights, you are wasting your life away.

Why does this column even exist, beyond being a pretentious way to induce guilt? Were hordes of squealing Ron Padgett fans begging to know what time he eats dinner? They're not even fact-checking these it seems, which brings us to our next point: The New York Times! Interview us. So long as you're not going to ask too many follow-up questions, we're sure your readers would love to know of our Sundays filled with visits to dust-filled archives, sex parties on our submarine, and eating space-age cuisine that's so healthy we start fucking levitating.

Mark is on Twitter and has a New York Times bestselling book.

Also check out 6 Reasons Breitbart Is The Most Batshit Crazy Website Ever and Wikipedia Is Shockingly Biased: 5 Lessons From An Admin.

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