One Month Blog Wrap.

Meta Meta Meta

So, when I began this blog on June 29th or so, I set out with the goal to get 5,000 hits in the first month. Now, on July 30th, I managed around 4,700 or so. Not bad? Here’s to much more in the future. I have some lessons learned on how to run a good blog – one that not only accumulates hits, but hopefully shapes political agendas and creates news. I don’t think I’ve necessarily achieved all these goals, but I’m getting some ideas about how to make it happen.

-Always write original content. Seriously. I’m continually struck by the amount of utter bullshit on the internet; a blog that just posts links and comments doesn’t really help anyone; you should write because you believe you have something unique to contribute to ongoing discussions/stories, not just because you happened to figure out how Blogger worked. If you want to post links, get a Digg account.

-That being said, write about what you know – “personal is always better”. My most popular posts thus far are about Yupres and NYU Buses – two posts I was personally invested, as a student activist and a student intern. I think this shows up in the posts: personal blogging not only brings out passion and lucidity, but also means you’re writing about something you (hopefully) have unique ‘expertise’ in. Seriously – I got link-backs to the Yupre post that just referred to the job listings I pulled out of my email; sometimes just knowing the right place to look for content can give a post legs.

- Follow a news cycle – This is a modification of the ‘don’t just link’ idea above. Know what other people (bloggers) are reading, and work your posts around that. This comes from basic reporting knowhow: better stories have an ‘angle’ that tweaks another story, meaning you don’t duplicate the work of another reporter and hopefully drive more readers to your paper. Same with blogging: try to take account of what is ‘rising’ (in Digg terms), and then write in reference to that story, with your own perspective.

- Titillate – for me this means writing about NYU, the NYPD and Yuppies (key tags from the top 3 posts, as it stands today). Really, you don’t have to apologize for what you write – a hit is a hit, and as long as your message gets out, the how doesn’t matter that much. People will link to you if they like you, but also if they hate you (though more frequently if they like you – BoingBoing, one of the most successful blogs on this here internets has notoriously cool authors).

- ummm… focus. this post has taken me an hour or more to write. shit.

- Send trackbacks, but most importantly email. if you think you’ve written something good, and want other people to read it, just send a damn email to blogs you like (or read to get inspired to write), and give them a link. (Be nice about this) Each of my biggest posts blew up when I sent an email to people I like to read, and told them about a post I wrote. Don’t overload someone’s inbox; make it look like you care about what goes on their blog – which you should, if you read them – and show that you aren’t just dumping links on people by taking care with the links you send, and to whom.

- Always put up images. These show up in page previews (that damn Snap thing at least), Facebook when you post a link, Digg when you post a new submission, etc etc. Original images in particular make a post stand out, and should embody the fact that you have something unique to contribute to the internet. (since this is a meta-post, I took a picture of me writing… this post)

That’s all I got. Big day, tired brain.

Yuppies are Out, Welcome to the Age of Yupres

Won't be so hard anymore. From Pak Gwei's Flickr photostream

Jess’s post over at NY Magazine and the recent spate of yuppie death threats in the East Village put me to pondering about the condition of urban life in New York. Specifically, the condition of yuppie-ness, and what it means to be a young New York-er these days.

It’s not looking good for the Young Urban Professional. The NY Times pointed out that the Wall Street yuppie variety is under particular stress these days, setting off cries of glee from a few places. It’s not like the other quintessential “New York” industries are doing so well for themselves either – the media industries started saying that ‘flat is the new up‘ (meaning they have no idea how to keep making money), and traditional news companies are so deep in shit it hurts. Jesus, even the real estate market has hit the brakes.

So, if the ‘yuppie’ enters decline, what takes its place as the keystone species of the urban ecosystem? What makes the new-New York economy go round?

Introducing: the “Yupre” – the Young Urban Pre-Professional.

What makes this the age of the Yupre? First, New York has become a college town. As I pointed out in a previous post, 600,000 college students call New York (temporary) home. Even more post-grad 20-somethings come here trying to make their way in the New York industries – fashion, media, finance, etc. Many of these new and temporary arrivals will never achieve full employment while in New York, taking a series of internships, volunteer positions and part time jobs to make ends meet before shuffling off to middle America, suburbia or Los Angeles. Despite this, they define the (cultural) economy of New York.

Economically – As a student at NYU pursuing a career in the ‘media industry,’ I’ve been subjected to a barrage of shitty employment offers. Here’s a sample:

“amNewYork is looking for journalism students for fall internships. Applicants will be required to write both news and feature stories, copy edit and do fact checking. This is an unpaid internship…”

“We are looking for interns to help us with the daily publishing duties associated with ForbesAutos.com. This includes writing and reporting, web production, article research, fact-checking, and proofreading. Ideally, applicants should have an interest in new media, and we are looking for someone with a fine eye for detail along with a solid foundation in writing. Since we are a car website, knowing the difference between a Porsche 911 GT2 and Porsche 911 GT3 is also a plus, but not required. This is an unpaid internship, and we’d like someone who can come in at” least two days a week for a few hours, or possibly the whole workday.”

“Men’s Vogue is looking for an editorial intern for the spring semester. The internship must count for credit, and interns would be asked to work 2 full days a week. Internship opportunities and responsibilities include: writing original content for our website; scouting theater, music, film, art, and book releases; researching potential story ideas for editors; and some administrative tasks.”

Job descriptions for internships read like the descriptions for real jobs; the only differences are the employees (students) and the pay (shit). Anyone taking these positions would be subject to the same demands placed on employees (producing original content, editorial work, etc), and their work would generate income in some form, yet often their only hope for advancement comes in the form of a rec letter or a resume bullet.

CAVEAT: I’ve taken some fuckin’ sweet internships, where my boss took a genuine interest in my education, and took the time to help me improve as a writer and journalist; I’ve also worked places in line with my political beliefs, where I essentially worked as a volunteer, but with the privileges of being an employee. In some cases, free labor makes sense, but in many more instances, employers will treat their interns as human resources in the most cynical sense, making extreme demands on their time and energy and then disposing with them.

Here’s the point: major industry in New York relies on free, temporary labor supplied by young people, primarily students, creating a new class of urban resident: the Young Urban Pre-Professional.

Culturally – Paradoxically, many Yupres live a relatively decent lifestyle – moving to New York is no cheap endeavor, and recent college grads sometimes have the backing of their parents. As for college students, few NYU students (at least) face eminent starvation if left unemployed (although some go without housing, and many many more take on massive debt).

The free time endowed by parental stipends and loose employment gives Yupres the space and energy to engage in the creative activity which (as Elizabeth Currid explains in The Warhol Economy), makes the New York economy go round. They’re the ones starting and discovering new bands, critiquing and making the art in New York’s galleries, and dreaming up new web ventures. Admittedly, they also homogenize and gentrify, filling NYU’s dorms in the East Village and clog Williamsburg with and eerie hoard of skinny hipster clones every weekend, but the creative zeitgeist remains.

Still, the average Yupre saga will most often end in some disappointment, either emotionally or financially. Middle America will never run out of kids with dreams of striking it big as writers, Wall Street-ers or artists, which means that New York will never run out of free or cheap labor from fresh faced 18-21 year olds willing to sell their soul for a break (or, as Jess put it “give blowjobs for bylines”). Forever at the service of their cultural and economic masters, the ever circulating Yupre class will define and shape New York for decades to come.