PressEthic

From Gawker, LA Times reports on the hipster website Cobrasnake, which is the photo blog of prominent scenester Mark Hunter that documents beautiful people around the world (but mostly in Los Angeles and New York City) attending various parties and doing mundane things while looking incredibly fabulous.

If you're unfamiliar with the site, it's good for general voyeuristic purposes as well as for a guide to hot new haircuts.

Two things about the article:

1. LA Times reporter Daniel Hernandez writes,

That's the hipster way. As soon as something in the subculture gets widespread attention, it is no longer cool. And then, just as quickly, once it becomes passe, it becomes ironically cool to like it again.

...and when something is written about in a major newspaper, it's almost always a sure sign that it's not hip anymore.

2. The article briefly mentions another section of the website, given the playful moniker "The Adventure Team," of which Hernandez writes "The purpose is to take pictures of people in L.A. who are underprivileged: the homeless and addicted, mostly." It quite easily glides over this unsavory detail.

I had seen the pictures on the Adventure Team segment of the site before, so I was wondering how the writer would deal with it. Apparently, by skirting the issue of the offensive nature of the pictures. The premise is this: Self-proclaimed trust fund hipsters take pictures of poor people, old people, disabled people, or even people who would dare to work somewhere as unfashionable as a McDonald's, and the pictures are posted to the site for everyone to see. Unlike the party photos, these people never asked to be gawked at or photographed. It's incredibly insulting and classist, and there is really no point to it.

Apparently, the entire point of the article is that there is no point. It ends with Hunter being asked about the Iraq war. He says, "Are we actually dealing with any of it? I'm not getting recruited for war. I'm in my happy little bubble over here in sunny Los Angeles, California."

Hernandez then writes, "Hunter has a point. The conversation ends with a discussion of his sudden craving for a $6 milkshake at a nearby Haagen-Dazs shop."(End Article)

Wow. Is this newsworthy for how utterly vapid it is?