September 12, 2007
Touting Bloghorns
Whilst performing our pre-read ritual of tearing out Toronto Life's 8,000 annoying snot-glued ad inserts and heavy stock subscription cards, we suddenly came across Torontoist's name in the mag's "Roundup" feature. The chart compares Toronto's four major city blogs: Torontoist, Spacing Wire (now Spacing Toronto), BlogTO, and the newish Torontopedia.
Torontoist's raison d'être is listed as "news, arts, culture, snark"—and we won't argue with that—while BlogTO is like "your geeky friend who's always in the know." Author Dave McGinn accurately lists Spacing Toronto as "civically engaged and proudly earnest" and lauds Torontopedia for its article on where to get really cheap booze.
Spacing's "next-gen Jane Jacobite" audience consists of the obvious urban planning enthusiasts, but you, dear Torontoist reader, could be a "scenester who is as likely to debate the goings-on at City Council as you are the new Feist CD." Our pals at BlogTO are "the Yahoo to Torontoist's Google" and anyone who's looking for cocktail party arcana might often find themselves browsing Torontopedia's growing, user-maintained content.
We're not sure how our own readers would feel about being called "yupsters, i.e. hipster yuppies" (BlogTO), but Toronto Life classifies us as "insouciant, with a good dose of cheek," which we'll gladly accept. We're also not embarrassed to admit that we had to look up "insouciant," but we were kinda nonchalant about having to do so.
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You guys just love patting yourselves on the back, and tooting your own horns. Google doesn't do that. They silently make consistently good content and get praise by their users, not themselves. You should do the same!
Some nice backhanded compliments dolled out here against your "pals". Dave Topping is far less bitchy. He smells good too.
I didn't write those quotes, Ryan; Toronto Life did.
As a matter of fact, this was only the 2nd issue with the heavy-stock subscription cards. They've usually been fairly flimsy. It must be a new ritual of yours.
I like yipsters, yippie hipsters :) Like if Abbie Hoffman carried a messenger bag and drank Starbucks.
I've been tearing our subscription cards from Toronto Life for years...some of them are the fly-in ones, and the one near the back is the stapled-in one. I've got an issue right here from five months ago and this month's, and the leftover remnant shreds are no different.
It's the glue-ins and heavy stock ads that are worse, though...you can barely read the thing with it flipping open to that page by itself all the time. At least the glue-ins are easily removed, though they're always glued to heavy stock paper anyway. Of course, it's hardly Toronto Life that is the only mag that does this.
I wish the subscriber version came without all the subscription cards, like you can order magazines without the perfume strips. Sigh.
Yupster? Really?
I dream of being a yupster. I pure aspire to that shit. Those guys have money.
Right now I just have caviar taste on a tuna fish budget.
For real, if Toronto Life wants me to be a yupster, I'm all on it, provided they can subsidize my ass.
But seriously, doesn't the Blog TO description sound more like Torontoist than the Torontoist description?
I've never thought about that. But it's true!
Thanks, Guest #1
-Guest #2
metroblogging toronto not even on the radar?