fuck that, man

Time Out New York is a popular local magazine that's basically an upscale version of TV Guide- it publishes weekly, runs a few articles, but devotes the bulk of its pages to listing all the cultural events happening in the city that week. The current issue poses the question, "Are you a real New Yorker?" and invites the reader to "prove it" by taking its extremely long and irritating quiz. (Which I don't recommend actually taking.)

Like most magazine quizzes, this one indexes your numerical score to some kind of unfunny description of your performance. (For example, a score of 15-30 might mean "don't quit your day job" and 31-50 "pretty good, college boy".) Being dumb, uncultured, and new to the city, I did horribly on the quiz, and T.O.N.Y. told me "the suburbs called; they want you back".

Clearly I don't need a magazine to tell me I suck, but that isn't the point. What bothers me is the transparent elitism. If you're a real New Yorker, TONY says, you can identify every building in Manhattan by the ding of its elevators, and if you can't you're an uncouth knuckle-dragger who might as well stick to college football watching and Kansas living and cousin fucking.

This attitude stands in sharp contrast to the romantic ideal of NYC as roiling melting pot/brilliant mosaic. Whichever metaphor you choose, each obviously implies a willingness to accept outsiders, as in the whole Ellis Island/Statue of Liberty/"give us your tired, your poor" thing from elementary school.

The people of NYC are, by and large, incredibly liberal. Many are outspoken critics of the Bush administration's burgeoning isolationism. But at the same time, TONY suggests, NYC is every bit as happy to look down on the rest of the country as the US is to look down on the rest of the world. In fairness, I don't mean to suggest that TONY speaks for all New Yorkers. But for whatever segment of the population enjoyed the quiz, I can't help but wonder if there isn't some serious hypocrisy going on here: Imagine if The National Review put out an issue asking "Are you a real American?" New York would be outraged.