News & Analysis
The 'Former' Success of the NY Times
GIVEN that most young people would prefer to be older and most old people yearn to be young, coming up with a new in-between life stage is an inherently thankless task. Many would be all too glad to be rid of dicey concepts like "tweens" and "adultescents." ... But Stephanie Dolgoff, the author of a new book, "My Formerly Hot Life: Dispatches From Just the Other Side of Young" (Ballantine Books), is undaunted. According to Ms. Dolgoff, women in their late 30s and early 40s fall into a "new category of person: adult 'tweens, not quite middle-aged, but no longer our reckless, restless, gravity-defying selves." Their new moniker: Formerlies, as in formerly hot. – New York Times
Dominant Social Theme: Growing up is awkward and self-referential and only the New York media can capture such tribulations in their entirety.
Free-Market Analysis: This caught our collective eye (it's one heckuva strange looking eye, sort of like an insect's with many facets) because it is so quintessentially a New York Times article. The New York Times has always specialized in "insider" big-town articles, which provide new ways of looking at the way people live in Metropolis. An elaboration on the dominant social theme might be, "We live in a hermetical bubble and have not yet caught up with the rest of the world, and we don't want to."
Now we don't want to sound as if we are directly attacking Ms. Dolgoff who seems like a very nice woman. But we wonder if she – or her editors at the Times – have noticed that, well ... times have changed. How about the 20 or 30 percent unemployment figure in the US? The war in Afghanistan, or the increasing hostilities Iraq, where the war is supposedly over? Ms. Dolgoff admits she has a thing for shoes.
In fact, Ms. Dolgoff's main professional preoccupation at this point in her life is how to deal with her "former hotness," and with the awkwardness of being a "'tween." What strikes us about this navel-gazing is not that Ms. Dolgoff has involved herself in it but that as soon as she put up her website five agents called her, a book-deal was inked, a New York Times article appeared and a Today Show slot was booked. You can bet that if Ms. Dolgoff had set up a website on neo-Austrian free-banking concepts, or the upcoming inflationary depression, there would have been no calls from agents, no book deal, no Times article and no Today Show appearance.
No, please ... this is not sour grapes. We have no dreams of appearing on the Today Show, or the Swiss equivalent (Lord help us). Our point is mainly that articles like this are a metaphor for the increasing divide between the US mainstream media and the rest of the country (and it goes for Europe, too, of course). This article could be written in the 70s, the 80s or the 90s. Its tone is so specific, however, its concerns are so parochial, its vocabulary is so particularly regional that it could only have appeared in the Times.
This being the aughties, what started as a joke with a colleague at Self blossomed into a Web site, Formerlyhot.com, in 2008 ... But what to wear on a book tour, assuming you're not among the 20-under-40 set? Ms. Dolgoff's closet — a narrow but deep space whose door will not close — presents a compact illustration of Formerly aesthetic and sartorial challenges ... THE closet was ground zero for Ms. Dolgoff's "crisis of fashion" ... She had put on a leather skirt from Diesel purchased five years earlier, and, she recounted: "I couldn't tell if I looked like downtown rocker girl or like I was upholstered in Jennifer leather. It didn't quite feel right, but I wasn't ready to get rid of it." ... Shopping for clothes in the uncharted netherworld between Forever 21 and Eileen Fisher can be a travail. But, she said, "You don't have to stick to jewel-toned twin sets or shop at Talbot's just because you've hit 40."... Ms. Dolgoff has turned to the Web for dalliances: membership sites like Rue La La, Gilt Groupe and Ideeli are favorites."
We visited Ms. Dolgoff's website and it's an entirely professional enterprise. She's got stories from "Formerlies" and anecdotes about how it feels to be a Formerly: "When I was 28 or so, I was out with a lady friend who was about 10 years older. A huge knockout with an adoring husband, she bears a striking resemblance to Mariel Hemingway. Nonetheless, that night, after she walked into the little French place in Chelsea where I was waiting for her, she sighed and said: 'You get past a certain age and men just stop looking up when you walk into a restaurant. They stop whistling. They stop ogling you. And you miss it.'"
The big commercial banks are still located in New York as is Wall Street. The Times is located there, along with major magazines and of course the "Sisters," the various women's magazines that help set the tone for how America talks to itself. We've documented how the mainstream media led by Rupert Murdoch is lurching toward a kind of pseudo-libertarianism, grasping at an audience that might entirely desert them otherwise, but articles like this one show how far the US New York-centric media still has to go.
This is, in fact, what the New York media has been so good at for so long. Take a phrase or a bit of an insight and package it in a way that makes it seem far more significant. Ms. Dolgoff now refers to herself as a "Formerly," and those who deposit insights on her website call themselves "Formerlies." It's a kind of promotion in fact. Analyze life from a number of itty-bitty angles and make them all self-referential. The boundaries of one's life have to do with shoes, restaurants, friends and aging. Ms. Dolgoff is happy to be packaged, apparently. But given what's going on and the nature of the web itself, such an approach increasingly seems like an anachronism to us.
Bless Ms, Dolgoff. We hope she has much luck with her book and her professional alter ego – a "Formerly." This kind of storytelling is on its way out, in our opinion, but the New York publishers still crave it. For us it only illustrates the increasing divide between the media gatekeepers and the rest of the world. It is in fact the reason that Businessweek and Newsweek were recently spun off for a hypothetical dollar. The reason that the Times itself almost went bankrupt last year. It's the reason the US publishing industry itself is going to have an increasingly hard time of it, even with Kindle.
Conclusion: After a full century of refining their art, the editorial trend-setters are actually behind the curve. The vocabulary and preoccupations of the New York media crowd are increasingly dated. New York no longer speaks for the West in our opinion. Hollywood no longer speaks for movies. TV's demographic is aging and American magazines and newspapers generally, are losing their audience. The entire mechanism, based on avoiding the reality of power-elite social, political, monetary and military structures, is breaking down. Soon the mainstream US media leadership may be "formerly."
PS: In fairness to Ms. Dolgoff, we should point out that the book was not publicly available at the time of this article and that we have not read it individually or collectively. The book itself apparently uses the term "Formerly" to delve more deeply into issues of aging, motherhood, maturity, etc. This is obviously more substantive than what the promotional material implies. Nonetheless, the article we analyze above and the slant of the promotional material is in a sense determinedly trivial. And these are not trivial times. The disconnect widens.
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Posted by Brent J. on 08/16/10 01:34 AM
With the gravity of problems facing the world, it is so wonderful that this woman can dismiss all of those issues and worry about whether she is young or old.
Too many in the U.S. have zoned out of reality and live in a structured default, fun-seeking fantasy land where making hard choices and attempting to effect change in our out-of-control governments (national and local) are alien concepts. Such drop outs have abdicated their responsibilities as citizens in favor of perpetual pleasure.
What will become of us when the opportunists and crooks have finished bilking the general public?
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Posted by Klaus Kaufmann on 08/15/10 08:05 AM
I read the NY Times daily if not deeply. It is one of the world's best known newspapers and I therefore deem it wise to learn what the elite and its supporters are up to though my American friends point out to me that to get real news these days one must not read any American media.
Until 'The Bell' I was in fact wondering for years what strange malady prevented 'reporters' and 'the news media' from doing their jobs. This also applies to Canadian news media including the revered CBC who in their 'world report' usually only report tragic accidents and tidbits from criminal trials " I always wonder about their 'world'...
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Posted by Zenbillionaire on 08/14/10 11:45 PM
Personally I'm a great fan of self-deprecation. Once in awhile it's good to make fun of yourself, especially when its so hard to make fun of the idiotic pursuits of society at large. Perhaps I need to develop a higher regard for tragic comedy...
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Posted by Weeble on 08/14/10 07:17 PM
I meant wealth, not money.
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Posted by Weeble on 08/14/10 05:49 PM
@ Ian McFarlane,
Myron Fagan:
Click to view link
Listen to the 6 LP set, and yes, you will feel like you just had 6 LPs. It is good information from the late 1800s to the 1960s or early 70s from what I gather; if you believe it. Also Wiki him (Myron Fagan) for the full effect.
Rothschild timeline:
Click to view link
Shows you how much money they have "acquired" over the centuries.
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Posted by Ian MacFarlane on 08/14/10 04:57 PM
@ John Danforth,
Thank you. This is the sort of stuff I am looking to find. You have provided the first look and I will follow it. Ian
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Posted by Weeble on 08/14/10 07:01 AM
@ Bill Ross
I gave you a pass on this yesterday, but I wandered past it again and "feel the need":
Cite:
Just curious. Was this a consequence of our "something from nothing" "debate" and, if so, do I get a "thanks for the epiphany", to add to my growing collection?
Bill, do you collect saved souls? I don't, because each soul is free (to save, be saved, to sell, be sold, or just be).
In a poker game, when you are watching the others, there are certain "tells" that give you an idea of the quality of their hand.
May I suggest you throw down a few cards from your hand, as it seems like you have a lot of cards. The ones you then pick up, are guaranteed to be wild cards.
And that "something from nothing" argument. That was priceless. I have no cards in my hand, yet I am still playing the game. Go figure!
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Posted by Wrusssr on 08/14/10 01:04 AM
@Ian MacFarlane
The rules to the game? There are many. Because there are multiple games underway simultaneously. (AKA memes and DSTs.) Here's a good rule-of-thumb starter set that the other side has used for the last, oh, half century or so. From a JPM poem. Don't commit them memory, though, because the rules are changing, thanks to the Internet.
A VETERAN'S PRIMER
Two umpires were talking.
Well, how shall we play this game?
Let's play the whole game on one side of the 50 yard stripe
On half of the field?
Of course.
Won't that anger the fans?
No, they won't even notice in all the excitement.
And only half the players will be angry.
Of course! Just half and they're not important.
Besides, the owner can draft more rookies and boot out
The old Vets if they get to grumbling too much.
The two umpires blew their whistles to start the game.
One was a politician, the other a . . .
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Posted by Mike on 08/13/10 11:53 PM
Another example, as if we needed anymore, why the main stream media continues to plummet into the abyss of irrelevancy. The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal et al.. are all headed the way of the buggy whip industry. Sadly the most pathetic part of it all- is the leadership of these media organs refuse to admit it.
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Posted by MetaCynic on 08/13/10 10:27 PM
@ Lukester:
I'm not sure that other eras were less conformist than our own. I am inclined to think that conformity is a hardwired human trait. Maybe conformity even has a survival value.
Those who cannot afford failure and are unable to do their own thinking can simply adopt what's out there that seems to work. Since humans seem to prefer the company of there own kind not only in weighty matters such as race, religion and ethnicity but in all kinds of lesser things like personal tastes, there is pressure to either conform or be left out. The number of those indifferent to social pressure and comfortable at the fringes is, I would think, pretty small.
The danger here is that conformists can become so dependent on cues from others for everything that they think and do that they can become willing foot soldiers for ambitious power seekers.
It can be argued that creativity, invention and risk taking, the engines of civilization, are performed by those few who are in one way or another at the fringes. They see things through different eyes because they are different. Conformists tend to be hostile to the different, and if not held in check will destroy the different and take down civilization.
If I had a time machine, my preference for another era would be late 19th, early 20th century America when personal freedom meshed with technological innovation in an environment permeated with optimism to produce all kinds of wonders. My only concern would be the state of dentistry!
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Posted by John Danforth on 08/13/10 10:22 PM
Lukester, seems it was true a while ago, too.
"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable. "
"The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear – fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety."
--H. L. Mencken--
Maybe we're on to some timeless truths here.
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Posted by Lukester on 08/13/10 09:15 PM
Methinks MetaCynic is pining for a more heroic era. This revulsion with the present – one wonders if people in prior eras felt their own version of revulsion with their own epoch every bit as feelingly as you do MetaCynic. "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose". We cannot be the first ones to feel fear and loathing of the shallowness of our epoch. (grins). =:-)
QUOTE:
Posted by MetaCynic on 8/13/2010 2:57:02 PM
Isn't frivolous, navel-gazing conformity what mass culture has always been about? The NYT's version of it may be out of step with the public's current concerns, but I'm sure that the NY trendsetters will regain their footing and find a way to invest penny pinching and urban vegetable gardening with designer label cache.
At it's core, mass consumer culture is modern man's restless quest for meaning, not through personal accomplishment, but through belonging by means of proud ownership of the latest sacred Designer Label stuff blessed by celebrity trendsetters. I find it incomprehensible, for example, that people buy things merely on the strength of celebrity endorsements. It says much about our culture that elite athletes like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan were able to make much more money endorsing things than they could with their athletic prowess. That's akin to car companies making more money making car loans than making cars!
What needs are filled in the minds of those who wear a Michael Jordan jersey or a Yale University sweatshirt, or who listen to rap music at ear shattering levels, or who drive a SUV with a kangaroo catcher grille, or who live in a house with an enormous hunchbacked roof? They all seem to be going through the motions of belonging rather than satisfying a real need.
It seems to me that the defining characteristic of the mass of humanity is insufficient courage and intellectual horsepower to do their own thinking in acquiring values. Thinking is difficult, lonely and full of pitfalls. Conformity is a comfortable opiate. Perhaps that is the ultimate opiate of the masses as is social engineering the opiate of the ruling classes. The specifics of the masses' particular value systems are less important to them than the fact that they belong to an unthinking herd.
Most people are unknowingly slaves in search of a master. They are uncomfortable on their own and want to be told what to think and how to act. Major religions, political parties and street gangs serve that purpose at the spiritual level. Opining about the latest fashion trends, it people like Stephanie Dolgoff do so at the profane level. Religions, political parties and street gangs are essentially indistinguishable from each other, yet people are so wedded to their favorites, as to regard all others as blasphemous enemies. The same goes for brand names. Coke or Pepsi?
The need to conform transcends social class and education. Look at the medical profession. Doctors are an intelligent and educated class, well above the norm, yet, although equipped to do so, very few will summon the courage to challenge the dysfunctional, symptom treating, disease care system to which they belong. The same goes for academics of all kinds. How many will openly challenge their colleagues' demonstrably unworkable statist fantasies? Clearly, peer disapproval and ostracism are a greater horror to even the well educated classes than is knowingly embracing falsehoods.
Is mindless conformity somehow a not obvious toxic byproduct of mercantilism, central banking and fiat money? Is it another dimension of dependency spawned by statism and the failure of government schools to teach thinking skills? Or has it always been with us and always will. Although their careers will sometimes hit a rough patch or two, I suspect that the Ms. Dolgoffs of the world can always expect to have a bright future shepherding the flock.
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Posted by John Danforth on 08/13/10 09:00 PM
I'll name names.
Let's start with the owners of the Federal Reserve Bank.
Here's the top result on a Google search:
Click to view link
Does that help you, Ian?
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Posted by Ian MacFarlane on 08/13/10 08:43 PM
Dear Ian MacFarlane,
Thank you for sharing your comment on The 'Former' Success of the NY Times with readers of The Daily Bell. Insights provided by contributors such as yourself do a great deal to enrich the articles we publish. The comments add something extra that we can't get from any other source. We know our readers value them, and we appreciate the time and attention you've given us.
If you have a website of your own and would like to refer visitors to the article and to your comment, you can do so by copying the following link and adding it to your site.
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Posted by Ian MacFarlane on 08/13/10 08:26 PM
You win!
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Posted by Bill Ross on 08/13/10 07:13 PM
@Ian MacFarlane
Google: "ruling elite"
About 820,000 results (0.19 seconds) ...
"I, for one, don't carry anyone's water but my own."
Perhaps not, but you seem to be demanding Bell to carry yours. Sure you're not, at least philosophically, on the list above?
And, adding to MetaCynic's excellent observations, how exactly do you intend to be free if you refuse to think for yourself and demand answers from others who, statistically, will lie and manipulate you to get what they want?
I'm sure Bell would not lie to you. It is more a matter of understanding how elites do things (methodology) and how we can stop them. This is far more important to understand than the "who", since we can knock down elite proxies (pawns) forever, and there will always be more. No, we have to understand how they subvert and manipulate us and the key architectural control points of civilization (such as education and law) that we must guard carefully, to insure they are not corrupted.
I expect this has not influenced you at all. Bell will just ignore you and I am sure you will attribute whatever meaning to this silence that serves your purpose.
Reply from The Daily Bell
Thank you. We did not accuse Ian MacFarlane of carrying anyone else's water, least of all the elite's.
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Posted by Ian MacFarlane on 08/13/10 06:52 PM
If it is not obvious and I have to state it unambiguously I, for one, don't carry anyone's water but my own.
At the risk of becoming unintentionally but tediously obnoxious I will repeat my query, posted on this site and directed to the notion of "forces arrayed on the other side."
"?If you will, please do not mistake the truth I seek to be construed as simple antagonism, and if an answer is forthcoming don't pull any punches.
Name names. Give rank and if available send along serial numbers." August 8, 2010
I am willing to accept your postulate "that a small group of ultra-wealthy families is trying to rule the world, and has been at it for centuries if not millennia" with that unanswered caveat.
As an afterthought it occurred to me that it might be construed as libel to name names without the sort of proof able to withstand a court challenge. If this is the case I am willing to write a request, using the postal service, which can be answered anonymously. I am quite serious as what appears to be a resort to innuendo does nothing to further a cause worth anyone's time.
Reply from The Daily Bell
Sir, there are thousand sites that name names. We have dealt with this query many times before. We do not name names because that is not our business. We analyze the memes of the elite. If this statement, replete with institutional anonymity causes you distress, why bother with the Bell anymore? You are free to look elsewhere and to find sites that do not, in your terminology, deal in innuendo.
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Posted by John Danforth on 08/13/10 05:11 PM
Brilliant exposition by MetaCynic.
As regards the point above; I believe mindless conformism predates civilization, and all forms of authoritarianism sprang up to satisfy it.
There are two ways to survive. One is by producing and the other is mastery over the ones who produce.
Those who exercise mastery over the ones who produce pretty much see the producers as drones. It probably evolved that way because most people act that way. They actually demand it.
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Posted by Knukles on 08/13/10 04:37 PM
The NYT, ever resident in its very own egocentric, predisposed athestic, statist bubble has never, ever felt itself to be behind the curve; instead sincerely believing themselves to represent the pinnacle, defining, cutting edge of altruistic, global scientific and intellectual gestalt.
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Posted by MetaCynic on 08/13/10 02:57 PM
Isn't frivolous, navel-gazing conformity what mass culture has always been about? The NYT's version of it may be out of step with the public's current concerns, but I'm sure that the NY trendsetters will regain their footing and find a way to invest penny pinching and urban vegetable gardening with designer label cache.
At it's core, mass consumer culture is modern man's restless quest for meaning, not through personal accomplishment, but through belonging by means of proud ownership of the latest sacred Designer Label stuff blessed by celebrity trendsetters. I find it incomprehensible, for example, that people buy things merely on the strength of celebrity endorsements. It says much about our culture that elite athletes like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan were able to make much more money endorsing things than they could with their athletic prowess. That's akin to car companies making more money making car loans than making cars!
What needs are filled in the minds of those who wear a Michael Jordan jersey or a Yale University sweatshirt, or who listen to rap music at ear shattering levels, or who drive a SUV with a kangaroo catcher grille, or who live in a house with an enormous hunchbacked roof? They all seem to be going through the motions of belonging rather than satisfying a real need.
It seems to me that the defining characteristic of the mass of humanity is insufficient courage and intellectual horsepower to do their own thinking in acquiring values. Thinking is difficult, lonely and full of pitfalls. Conformity is a comfortable opiate. Perhaps that is the ultimate opiate of the masses as is social engineering the opiate of the ruling classes. The specifics of the masses' particular value systems are less important to them than the fact that they belong to an unthinking herd.
Most people are unknowingly slaves in search of a master. They are uncomfortable on their own and want to be told what to think and how to act. Major religions, political parties and street gangs serve that purpose at the spiritual level. Opining about the latest fashion trends, it people like Stephanie Dolgoff do so at the profane level. Religions, political parties and street gangs are essentially indistinguishable from each other, yet people are so wedded to their favorites, as to regard all others as blasphemous enemies. The same goes for brand names. Coke or Pepsi?
The need to conform transcends social class and education. Look at the medical profession. Doctors are an intelligent and educated class, well above the norm, yet, although equipped to do so, very few will summon the courage to challenge the dysfunctional, symptom treating, disease care system to which they belong. The same goes for academics of all kinds. How many will openly challenge their colleagues' demonstrably unworkable statist fantasies? Clearly, peer disapproval and ostracism are a greater horror to even the well educated classes than is knowingly embracing falsehoods.
Is mindless conformity somehow a not obvious toxic byproduct of mercantilism, central banking and fiat money? Is it another dimension of dependency spawned by statism and the failure of government schools to teach thinking skills? Or has it always been with us and always will. Although their careers will sometimes hit a rough patch or two, I suspect that the Ms. Dolgoffs of the world can always expect to have a bright future shepherding the flock.
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