The "It's Tough Out There" Genre Has Jumped the Shark, Landed on the Shark, Rendered the Shark Quadriplegic
And it's a surprise victory for data nerds
In January, I poked light fun at a guy little boy who makes $90,000 a year but has declared upward mobility dead because he can’t afford the diamond-encrusted jet skis and vacations to Saturn that he assumes everyone else is buying. It was a sterling example of what I call the “It’s Tough Out There” genre of journalism, which is when a newspaper profiles a random person to remind you that life is a constant struggle, just in case you forgot. It’s the genre that led me to make this joke about the profile that Job surely would have received if he lived today:
I would have kept my powder dry if I had known that this week, The New York Times would run an article that’s either the zenith or the nadir of the genre, and maybe both at the same time. Meet Brendan and Anala: They have a son, they make $500,000 a year, and they live in Manhattan and also in the fever dreams of any Republican hallucinating about wine track New York elitists. They spend their considerable income eating out, living near Central Park, and sending their son to a preschool that — for the money they’re paying — better have an on-site Michelin star restaurant and an 18-hole golf course. When you add in the fact that they’re socking away $10,000 a month and paying New York taxes, it all adds up: This wealthy couple is living like a wealthy couple. Shocking. Tomorrow in The New York Times: The profile of a gymnast who is always jumpin’ and flippin’ and shit.
Brendan and Anala — to their credit — don’t do the “woe is me” schtick; the worst they do is to describe themselves as “middle class for the area”, which is like calling yourself “the most sensible person in Jonestown”. But the Times seems to be making some oblique point about affordability that basically amounts to “more money buys more stuff”. To be fair, the Times had to profile a rich couple, because the piece is part of a nine-part (so far) series about people with different incomes living in New York. They covered a florist in Brooklyn and a gig worker in Queens and the real-life version of that couple that Oscar Isaac would crash with in Inside Llewyn Davis. And all the people functionally say the same thing: “It would be nice if stuff cost less.” Duly noted. And agreed with. Great stuff, New York Times.
