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"Monster truckers obsess over distinctions among types of dirt the way vintners obsess over terroir." Are the author and publication trying to sound as condesc

"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.

olivermarks 3y ago
I gave up my subscription to the New Yorker years ago due in large part to this 'sophisticates' problem
Johnny555 3y ago
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.
resolutebat 3y ago
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.
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  "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...
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- shockeychap 3y ago
  "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 3y ago
    "It can couch its descriptions in the language of [its primary audience]." This is a weird critique.
    - shockeychap 3y ago
      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 3y ago
        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 3y ago
    >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 3y ago
    > the language of coastal elites For someone wanting plain language, it's surprising that you say "New York Jews" this way.
- petsfed 3y ago
  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-air-of-superiority-1819583947 https://www.theonion.com/ill-try-anything-with-a-detached-ai...
  - dsr_ 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      ... 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.
- TomDavey 3y ago
  Tut-tut, my good sir, condescension is the raison d'être of The New Yorker.
nosefurhairdo 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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.
  - Swizec 3y ago
    > 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.
  - cowmoo728 3y ago
    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.
theideaofcoffee 3y ago
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.
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toast0 3y ago
> 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.
ern 3y ago
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 3y ago
> 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.

olivermarks 3y ago

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

Johnny555 3y ago

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.

resolutebat 3y ago

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.

JimtheCoder 3y ago
"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...
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shockeychap 3y ago
"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 3y ago
  "It can couch its descriptions in the language of [its primary audience]." This is a weird critique.
  - shockeychap 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      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 3y ago
  >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 3y ago
  > the language of coastal elites For someone wanting plain language, it's surprising that you say "New York Jews" this way.
petsfed 3y ago
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-air-of-superiority-1819583947 https://www.theonion.com/ill-try-anything-with-a-detached-ai...
- dsr_ 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    ... 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.
TomDavey 3y ago
Tut-tut, my good sir, condescension is the raison d'être of The New Yorker.

nosefurhairdo 3y ago

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 3y ago
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.
- Swizec 3y ago
  > 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.
- cowmoo728 3y ago
  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.

theideaofcoffee 3y ago

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.

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toast0 3y ago

> 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.

ern 3y ago

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 3y ago

> 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.