Sunday, December 21, 2014

"Weingarten: D.C. isn’t the second-snobbiest city in America; it’s the snobbiest"

"I’m sure you used advanced metrics to arrive at your rankings, but believe me, statistics alone cannot adequately measure snobbery. Sure, both cities are going to rank pretty high in, say, the number of dog psychiatrists per capita or the percentage of coffeehouses that offer foam-infused espresso made from Kona beans excreted by Namibian marmosets, but I contend you have to be prepared to drill down deeper. Literally. Washington invented the term “drill down deeper,” which is part of the pretentious lingua franca of Sunday morning TV talk shows, a means of entertainment we also invented because we in Washington simply take it for granted that the entire country hungers to watch sexy, A-list D.C. celebrities like Timothy Geithner and Janet Yellen earnestly debate exogenous horizontal equity integration."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/weingarten-dc-isnt-the-second-snobbiest-city-in-america-its-the-snobbiest/2014/09/24/dff9fb78-3776-11e4-bdfb-de4104544a37_story.html

YES. I love DC, but people take themselves so ridiculously seriously. I had been thinking about this, but I didn't realize quite how true this was until a friend of mine from home came to visit and tried to casually joke with people and they all took her slightly too literally. Like, she stopped to pet a pug puppy and jokingly asked "Is he going to grow into these wrinkles?" and his owner said very seriously "well, he is probably going to grow a little more, so he might" because in DC if you think a dog is cute you say "this dog is cute", you don't quirkily appreciate his wrinkliness.
(There have been so many small, awkward pauses in my life as a result of the gap between Californian social norms and DC social norms)

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