07w42:2 The Rage of the Creative Class Posted October 15th, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week42 number 2 (The Rage of the Creative Class) Everybody Sucks; Gawker and the rage of the creative underclass | Vanessa Grigoriadis http://nymag.com/news/features/39319/ “To be enticed, as these writers were, by the credentials extended by an old-media publication is a source of hilarity at the Gawker offices, where, beneath a veneer of self-deprecation, the core belief is that bloggers are cutting-edge journalists—the new ‘anti-media.’ No other form has lent itself so perfectly to capturing the current ethos of young New York, which is overwhelmingly tipped toward anger, envy, and resentment at those who control the culture and apartments. ‘New York is a city for the rich by the rich, and all of us work at the mercy of rich people and their projects,’ says Choire Sicha, Gawker’s top editor (he currently employs a staff of five full-time writers). ‘If you work at any publication in this town, you work for a millionaire or billionaire. In some ways, that’s functional, and it works as a feudal society. But what’s happened now, related to that, is that culture has dried up and blown away: The Weimar-resurgence baloney is hideous; the rock-band scene is completely unexciting; the young artists have a little more juice, but they’re just bleak intellectual kids; and I am really dissatisfied with young fiction writers.‘ Sicha, a handsome ex-gallerist who spends his downtime gardening on Fire Island, is generally warm and even-tempered, but on this last point, he looks truly disgusted. ‘Not a week goes by I don’t want to quit this job,” he says, “because staring at New York this way makes me sick.'” [emp mine]
