This may be the funniest media story of 2012 yet. It involves two of the most patently ridiculous blogs on the entire internet, one of which cowered in fear at some overzealous publicists, who only made their cause worse by asking for the removal of a blog post, which the other ridiculous blog has now published.
Briefly: Lana Del Rey is the singer-songwriter who recently appeared on Saturday Night Live. Ms. Rey’s performance, generally deemed awful at best, was subject to widespread and withering critical bashing (including NBC’s own Brian Williams). Ms. Del Rey is no stranger to controversy; long story short, she’s a failed pop singer who got lip injections, changed her name, and now has a great backstory about living in a trailer that makes her New Jersey Chanteuse schtick as Urban Outfitters-ready as a pair of tight Levi’s.
Got all that? Okay. Now we come to Hipster Runoff, the anonymous blog that is half satire, half anthropological criticism, and all hilarity. The pseudonymous author of Hipster Runoff is Carles, who is the Hipster of the Decade, according to Gawker. Somehow, Carles now also writes for ESPN.
From whatever angle you view it, the Lana Del Rey phenomenon clearly represents a new level of trying to breed a cultural success. The entire thing has caused Hipster Runoff to “have” the kind of intense existential crisis that causes aneurysms. He has been relentless in his coverage of Lana Del Rey. For more on that, read here.
Thought Catalog is a blog written by pretty much whoever wants to write for it (read: mostly teenagers and young twenty-somethings who have spent far too much time on Tumblr). It’s mostly filled with their overly earnest attempts at cultural criticism and irony, in a totally unironic way, as well as rhetorical questions about being young and in love and broke. It is insufferable. Gawker called it a “fascinating experiment in ego-blogging,” which is being kind. It is essentially the very type of thing which Hipster Runoff hilariously lampoons, and yet, also probably gave birth to. Try not to consider this too much, as it will make your face hurt.
Recently, Thought Catalog posted a piece of satire entitled “Lana Del Rey Responds to Her Critics.” It was “written” from the perspective of Lana Del Rey by a young writer named Dave Schilling. It even held the byline “By Dave Schilling.”
This apparently wasn’t enough to sate Lana Del Rey’s publicists, who requested the post come down, for reasons not yet clear. Maybe they accused Thought Catalog of being defamatory. Who knows. Publicists do this kind of thing all the time. Often, it’s best to just ignore them, because usually they’re empty threats, as most publicists are not lawyers (far from it). Apparently Thought Catalog rolls over with less reluctance than a prize-winning shih-poo.
So said Thought Catalog writer decided to take his post to Hipster Runoff.
He writes of the experience:
Of all the bad press that she’s gotten in the wake of her ‘performance’ on Saturday Night Live, I think it’s amusing that she (or her publicist, or both) chose to attack my article. It was a clear piece of satire. Is the real Lana Del Rey like the ‘Lana Del Rey’ I wrote about in my article? I don’t know. Probably not.
Hipster Runoff has published the post again in its entirety.
Takeaway:
- Publicists still don’t know when to stop.
- Young Hip Things running Young Hip Things website are scared of publicists and can’t even publish ephemera without sacrificing backbone.
- Hipster Runoff is winning the hilarious war against Lana Del Rey.
- Lana Del Rey is still pretty awful, which is something overzealous publicists—whose actions just affirm exactly how contrived her entire carefully curated shtick actually is—can’t help with.
And scene.
fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek
