[shockeychap]

"Monster truckers obsess over distinctions among types of dirt the way vintners obsess over terroir."

Are the author and publication trying to sound as condescending and uppity as possible? Honestly, this reads like the kind of thing that "Frasier" mocked so perfectly about upscale sophisticates living in a bubble.

I was never a big fan of monster truck rallies, but it's easy to understand what was so fun about them. Articles like this that deign to explain the finer points of monster truck rallies (while using esoteric references to wine sampling) for their audience of sophisticates tell me just how useless publications like the "The New Yorker" really are anymore.

[resolutebat]

I'm genuinely confused by what you're outraged by here. The average New Yorker reader knows more about wines than monster trucks, so they're trying to put it in terms that will make sense to their readers.

If anything, the article reads as the opposite of pretentious to me: it makes it clear that monster trucking isn't just brainless amusement for inbred yokels, but a sport where things like the exact composition of dirt is critically important.

[petsfed]

I feel like an article that starts with "A monster trucker is the kind of person who has a favorite type of dirt." is trying to say something about "the kind of person who has a favorite type of dirt", and fans thereof, and its not positive.

The whole article reads to me with the same smug superiority as an Onion article about, well, self-described sophisticates enjoying things with a smug sense of superiority[0]. The thing curiously absent from the article is any sort of enthusiasm for the subject matter. Its all very clinical, and seems at best bemused about other people's enthusiasm, without anything to suggest why that enthusiasm might be justified.

0. https://www.theonion.com/ill-try-anything-with-a-detached-ai...

[dsr_]

You know who else has favorite kinds of dirt?

Farmers.

Gardeners.

Potters.

Kids who have ever been in the wrong sandbox.

Sorry, I think your interpretation is incorrect.

[petsfed]

... but not, you know, urban sophisticates. There's nothing to tie a gardener's experience of dirt to a monster truck driver (or fan). There's nothing to tie a potter's experience of dirt to a monster truck driver. The way farmers are discussed in the article, I submit that the writer doesn't know, or care to know, any of those either.

There's a lot of words expended on how the people who are already fans get excited about some event. But the thing I was waiting for was the writer to express some excitement himself. Its always held at arms' length. Bits like

>The appeal has a certain timelessness: people have always liked really big stuff, particularly of the unnecessary variety. Stonehenge, pyramids, colossi, Costco. For perhaps obvious reasons, this is usually a male impulse.

or more damningly

>It was the experience of seeing something amazing and slightly ridiculous, something you’d have never thought of yourself, like a dog juggling knives. I understood the hugging impulse.

and

>As they rumbled by, grown men yelled at the top of their lungs, and a bachelorette party in front of Nudie’s Honky Tonk took videos.

really make it clear that the writer wants us to know he's not one of them, and you, the average New Yorker reader, should not try to find common ground with these people. He doesn't change his tune until the final segment, where he drives one of these trucks himself. Until then, its just bemused descriptions of other people's excitement, and its hard not to hear some second-hand embarrassment in those descriptions.

[bombcar]

Here’s a video on a similar “redneck phenomenon” with respect and admiration shown to what is happening: https://youtu.be/VZ6_8WJ3mh8

[gumby]

I read it as sympathetic and supportive.

[AlbertCory]

Exactly, and we have Hunter Thompson and Tom Wolfe as good examples of how to write this kind of thing. Zach Helfand isn't fit to clean their typewriter keys.

[shockeychap]

"isn't just brainless amusement for inbred yokels"

The article never made reference to "inbred yokels". It didn't have to. It can couch its descriptions in the language of coastal elites who supposedly know more of wine and polo than they do of simple things like truck rallies. And while it's ostensibly explaining how "sophisticated" the sport is, the readers will fully understand the "isn't just brainless amusement for inbred yokels" part.

I wouldn't characterize my response as one of outrage. But I do find it off-putting and pretentious.

[ethanbond]

"It can couch its descriptions in the language of [its primary audience]." This is a weird critique.

[shockeychap]

That's fair to say, and I don't deny being a little hostile toward snobbery and pretension. I always have been. However, I also don't think [its primary audience] is quite right. I think [its primary audience's self image] is a little more correct.

[ethanbond]

Yes it's a total myth that more readers of The New Yorker would know "wine people care about soil" than know "monster truck people care about dirt."

[dylan604]

>But I do find it off-putting and pretentious.

If you let someone make you feel guilty about the things you like, then there's a bit of self reflecting that should be done.

[rodgerd]

> the language of coastal elites

For someone wanting plain language, it's surprising that you say "New York Jews" this way.

[OfSanguineFire]

The New Yorker was founded to reflect a WASPy perspective, its celebrated founder was of rather humble background and chased that. And how many Jews, historically, were among the American elites playing polo? Your comment is well out of order.

[zoklet-enjoyer]

I don't think of New York specifically or Jews at all when I see the term "coastal elites."

I think of wealthy business owners on the east and west coasts. Venture capitalists. Managers at software companies. Politicians. Just high paid and/or influential people who think highly of themselves and others in their cliques.

[AlbertCory]

ctrl-f "jew" no hits.

[JimtheCoder]

"but a sport where things like the exact composition of dirt is critically important."

Let's not swing the pendulum too far in the opposite direction either...

[TomDavey]

Tut-tut, my good sir, condescension is the raison d'être of The New Yorker.

[nosefurhairdo]

There is nothing condescending about that analogy. Debatable whether "terroir" is esoteric, but even without knowing about winemaking you can understand the point that the quality of dirt is of surprising significance to monster truck rallies.

And an article which aims to spread cross-cultural appreciation for a fun, harmless event is not useless. What is useless is unconstructive negativity.

[shockeychap]

I have to question how "surprising" the significance of dirt composition is. The characteristics of dirt and mud (and the tires themselves) will affect all aspects of how the truck behaves and handles. How is it surprising that one who enjoys the activity would be deeply invested in the very ground on which everything happens?

If the article actually was trying to spread any kind of real appreciation for monster trucking or why they're so much fun, I would be all for it. However, it reads like some outsider describing observations of an untouched tribe in the jungles of South America. No matter how much they write of their interesting findings, they're not trying to convince any of us to give up modern life and join the tribe.

[cowmoo728]

Someone who has never thought about off roading or 4x4s may be very surprised that the dirt matters so much because they have never thought about it. So it sounds like an important topic to address for the audience of the New Yorker.

[Dalewyn]

I have to question how "surprising" the significance of hardware configuration is. The characteristics of CPU and mobo (and the RAM sticks themselves) will affect all aspects of how the computer behaves and handles. How is it surprising that one who enjoys the activity would be deeply invested in the very silicon on which everything happens?

Replacements in italics mine to demonstrate that we aren't that different from the wine and dirt lovers.

[Swizec]

> I have to question how "surprising" the significance of dirt composition is

It's surprising to people who have never thought about it before. So about 99.9% of the population.

And if you disagree with that characterization of the average person ... how strongly do you feel about the difference between a 7-speed automatic and an 8-speed automatic car? Or the importance of wood grain orientation in your picnic table? Or the exact type of steel used in your cutlery? How about the difference between a cavendish and a manzano banana?

These details affect "literally everything" about those items. Yet most of us never think about it because we already have enough other things to nerd out about.

[theideaofcoffee]

I don’t understand what you’re considering as uppity as it was probably the only highbrow analogy in the entire piece, the rest being pretty accessible and readable. Also you’re evaluating a line from the ... New Yorker which you consider useless, may as well stick to Popular Science if you want just the facts and a little less literary exposition.

This is the same tired critique that people on HN bandy about every time a New Yorker article is posted: “just get to the point!”. If they did it would just be a lot less fun to read.

[Johnny555]

It’s true though. I say this as someone whose family members used to compete in mud bog competitions (not quite the same as monster trucks, but in the same genre). They’d walk the track and chose tires and set weight balance based on the mud conditions.

[ern]

There are two separate themes linked to soil in the article: the use of dirt for the shows; and the use of soil education in agriculture, that led to agriculture shows, that, in turn led to sideshows, that led to monster truck shows. I thought it was quite clever that they were unconnected, and yet both linked to monster trucks.

The pretentious tone seemed to gently mock the readers and the perceived elitist nature of the New Yorker, rather than the monster truck enthusiasts, so more like the show Frasier, rather than the self-awareness lacking titular character within the show.

[antonvs]

> tell me just how useless publications like the "The New Yorker" really are anymore.

Are you sure you’re familiar with what The New Yorker is? It’s not really a news magazine, or anything like that. Its own description says, “journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry.” But “journalism” here is not like what you get from traditional news sources. The New Yorker is to mainstream journalism what Wes Anderson is to action movies. You don’t really read The New Yorker to learn what’s actually happening in the world. That doesn’t make it “useless”, because that’s not its goal.

[toast0]

> Are the author and publication trying to sound as condescending and uppity as possible?

It's the New Yorker. That's the whole purpose of the magazine.

[olivermarks]

I gave up my subscription to the New Yorker years ago due in large part to this 'sophisticates' problem