Surprisingly, not a trend story. (The Onion)

Poor Justin Peters. The Slate scribe probably hadn't heard about The Times Is on It Twitter account when he signed up to do what most of us would consider the impossible (or at least the super-foolish): Try to "embody" seven trends created discovered by the NYT’s Style Section, to become the most stylish man in New York. (Except, obviously, Brooklyn.)

So what did these seven trends entail? Growing a beard ("Oh, to Be Just Another Bearded Face," May 30); using cockney slang ("Americans Are Barmy Over Britishisms," Oct. 10); putting 30 pillows on the bed ("A Nation Lulled to Sleep," Feb 10); a happy hour dance party/gym class ("Would You Like a Cocktail With That Workout?" March 7); wearing a man-bun and imitating gap teeth with tooth-black ("Generation Gap: Look Who’s Smiling Now," Feb 15 and "Spare a Hair Band? A Man Bun to Go," Jan. 25), and getting a "he-wax" ("A He-Wax for Him," April 10).

Luckily, those seven trends weren't done simultaneously, or else we doubt Mr. Peters would have survived the ordeal. (Getting a genital wax while working out with energy shots? Blimey!) He did, however, yell at several non-bearded men at Brooklyn Flea, harassed exhibitors at the Agenda: NYC trade show, and had a really good night's sleep (among other things). Conclusion? Trying to keep up with trend stories will make other people think you are insane, or an idiot, or a writer. Like when Mr. Peters tries to mock a beardless gentleman, because according to the Times, some men now "face ridicule" for not having facial hair.

We just want to know: Where does he stand on wearing pantyhose with Spanx? Skirts? My god, there are just so many things we need to know about, trend-wise!

Peter Brant Jr., Harry Brant (Patrick McMullan)

If you haven't heard of Peter and Harry Brant yet, you should be calling the Postal Service and Time Warner to find out why they've discontinued service to that rock you're living under. The teenage sons of paper mogul Peter M. Brant have been everywhere lately: gracing the Style Section of The New York Times, tweeting from a shared Twitter account and being profiled in this week's lugubrious three-page spread in the latest issue of  Vanity Fair (to make matters worse,  the piece was titled "Little Lord Flauntleroys").

Now the blood is in the water, and its officially hunting season as the collective new media aims to take a shot at these young male socialites.

Because young master Peter Brant Jr. (18 years old) and his brother Harry (15) fit squarely into Nick Denton's wheelhouse, Gawker was on top of the Brant children (calling them "The World's Luckiest Teenage Homosexuals") before most people had heard of them.

But the mockery of the Brant Brothers didn't end there. We had to ask ourselves why a site like Cracked.com would be interested in these two, since even negging on regular celebrities doesn't fit with the pop-culture listicles the site mainly traffics in, let alone making fun of underage rich kids. (You're more likely to see, say, a story on the many inconsistencies in Back to the Future than an update on Lindsay Lohan.)

Yet on Tuesday, Cracked.com editor Soren Bowie published a 1,300-word-plus open letter to the Brant siblings, titled "Introducing Two Wealthy Young Celebrities You Will Soon Hate." The piece included such advice as:

You think building aggressive, baseless opinions is the same thing as building character, partially because you're just 15 years old, and partially because you're probably surrounded by other people doing the exact same thing, since your third interest, of course, is fashion.

And:

Your entire existence, everything you have chosen to be, is so big and means so little ... Your personalities are built entirely on some CW show you saw once and have since been unable to shake. A lack of actual responsibilities or needs in your life afford you all the time you need to just sit and invent yourselves from scratch, from the crack of noon until you fall asleep in each other's arms on the 18th century couch in one of your family's many living rooms. "We need to be that," you likely whisper to one another in between kisses, pointing at the flickering flat screen. "We need to become gossip girls."

(Of course, one could argue that there is no need for the word 'likely' in that last sentence, as the brothers think their life is exactly like Gossip Girl, but that's just splitting hairs.)

If this seems like a particularly harsh take-down of two easy targets, well, Cracked isn't the only one. (We ourselves are not immune to noting the disproportionate amount of media slobbering over children who have yet to accomplish anything.)

But why, exactly, do the Brant brothers infuse us with such red-eyed rage? We have a theory.

The term "socialite" has become sort of a catchall in the last several years, referring to anyone who is famous for being famous. But let's be clear here: having a reality show doesn't make you a socialite, nor does it apply to every one of Paris Hilton's friends with a sex tape. (But we understand how you might be confused.) True socialites, it turns out, are hard to find, for two reasons:

1) because their existence has been eclipsed by movie stars and celeb-reality wannabes; and

2) because the word "socialite" has been given such a bad rap that most people who do fit the description eschew major publicity. After all, no one wants to appear on a show called High Society when the country is in a recession, lest they be dragged out of their apartments by an angry mob. (Possibly spearheaded by a modern-day Robespierre in a scary face mask, as the dystopic Dark Knight Rises predicted.)

As the Muffy Astors (and even the Tinsley Mortimers) of the world impose a sort of media blackout on their comings and goings, we began our search for the next generation of le bon ton too rich and too young to grasp the concept that "All press is good press" doesn't apply to The New York Times chronicling your Gossip Girl-inspired lifestyle. And male socialites, like male models, are exceptionally absurd (not least because of their obsession with fashion as an art form).

Consider Peter and Harry Brant the real-life equivalents of Derek Zoolander: innocent idiots who just happen to be really, really, really, ridiculously wealthy. And love Gossip Girl. Don't blame them for the media shitstorm they've stirred up, and don't go all high and mighty on their parents either. If it's anyone's fault, it's that of the publications who deem the musings of children to be worth your precious reading time.

We're looking forward to the inevitable New Yorker piece.

Skirts: the new (old) trend story (Getty Images)

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months," Oscar Wilde once famously quipped. He was almost right. When discussing trends in fashion staples, very little is altered...not even the copy. Such is the case of The New York Times and its obsession with skirts.

"It seems parrotlike to go on repeating the statement that short skirts are fashionable," wrote The New York Times fashion reporter Anne Rittenhouse, "but it is amazing to observe their progress toward a complete sweep of the field."

Ms. Rittenhouse (a penname for Ms. Harry-Dele Hallmark) must have been looking into a crystal ball: she was already exasperated by the skirt trend stories back in 1909, when the novelty of a hemline was that it was no longer attached to a dress. Her item was titled: "What the well-dressed women are wearing; The Skirt With Separate Bodice the Correct Styles for Smartly Dressed Women This Season."

With that, The New York Times pronounced that skirts were "in." And twice a year because it lines up with Fashion Week: long skirts come back for fall, short skirts for Spring, with an almost clockwork preciseness, the parrotlike Grey Lady announces that once again, skirts are fashionable. Yes ladies, free yourself of those dowdy knickerbockers and put on a skirt...they're back in style!

The only problem? No one has ever made the argument in the last 100+ years that skirts were somehow not in vogue. Even when The New York Times was reporting on trousers and slacks as a feminine workplace alternative to skirts, they were running concurrent articles about "miniskirt mobs": women rebelling against conservative groups telling them to lower their hemlines.

The most recent example of the "skirt trend story" trend was found in a Thursday Styles piece mid-March. In "Only the Half of It", Ruth La Ferla made a passionate argument for the attire, saying "its very multiplicity, emblematic of a fashion landscape in which no single style or trend prevails, is acting as catnip to consumers, who are combining skirts, long and short, slim and wide, plain and patterned, with pieces varying from tank tops to mannish shirts, from turtlenecks to blazers."

There's even a quote from Marshall Cohen of the research firm NPD Group: "The skirt has become the new hot toy for women to play with in fashion."

Ms. Ferla's column begins with a young MTV executive whose choice of attire makes her feel left out among colleagues who wear leggings (confusing, since leggings--like tights--aren't fashionable unless you wear something over them...or are an Olsen twin), and ends with the definitive last word on the subject: “Skirts are a statement for sure.”

Really? Are they?

Even fashion insiders seem to think that the the never-ending skirts-are-in story seems dubious.

"Are you wearing a skirt right now?" Kelly Cutrone, of PR firm People's Revolution and America's Next Top Model, demanded over the phone. "Are you wearing leggings?" No, we were wearing jeans...then again, no one has ever accused us of being at the forefront of fashion.

"I will guarantee," she continued sardonically, "that in the summer people will be wearing skirts, shorts, and bathing suits." She broke into  hysterical, throaty laughter. "And no, they won't be wearing leggings, because those are cotton-poly blend and don't breathe."

Jennifer Wright, editor-in-chief of fashion and beauty blog TheGloss.com, put in her two cents as well when asked by The Observer where skirts had gone that necessitated these "Return of Skirts" trend stories.

"Where did skirts go? They went into your closet. With the rest of your spring/summer clothes. Because it was 30 degrees out. Every spring they come out again. Because it's warm again."

Now, one could make the case that most skirt stories in The New York Times have not really been about the novelty of the item itself, but the styles in which people wore them. Throughout the century, there have been endless debates over the mini, the micro-mini, the a-line, the midi, the maxi, and the pencil. But even these pieces tend to have a Groundhog Day quality to them.

In December of 1991, Bernadine Morris wrote that designers were trying to find a way to have longer skirts catch on with the public after 20 years cropped styles. "Still, the mini will not disappear," she wrote. "Designers will do their best to keep a balance."

That seemed reasonable, if that just two years prior, Ms. Morris had written almost the exact same story. Her June 13th, 1989 piece, "Summer Comfort, in Long Looks" ended with a very similar line. A woman walking down Seventh Avenue told Ms. Morris, "We don't want to invest in good clothes that cost a lot of money and then be told we can't wear them more than one season. I feel comfortable in long skirts and in short ones. I plan to wear them both.''

Of course, The New York Times isn't the only offender. Across the seas, Harriet Walker wrote in The Independenton January 17th, 2011 that long skirts were indeed making a comeback, without acknowledging that they've apparently been in the comeback stage for over two decades.

"The long skirt has, understandably enough, gained something of a reputation for being for fuddy-duddies—a bit droopy, a bit (apologies here) 'art teacher," Ms. Walker opined, before ending her piece in the style of her predecessors with a quote from Caroline Evans: "Fashion is defined by rapid style changes. It never stands still ...After all, nothing is less fashionable than the recently out-of-fashion."

"Saying that skirts are in trend is like saying pants, t-shirts or jackets are in trend," Houghton Creative Director and stylist Katherine Polk told The Observer.

Now that's a good idea for a Styles Section trend story if we've ever heard one: "T-shirts: What the well-dressed women are wearing."