BroBos in Paradise

A dedicated FIPS reader sent a link to this Observer article:

"Perhaps you remember the New York Times columnist David Brooks' coinage BoBos—short for Bourgeois Bohemians? Those latte-slurping, SUV-driving, Pottery Barn-shopping, NPR-listening creatures of the Clinton era? Ms. Hambleton and her ilk represent a new variation on the species: Brooklyn Bourgeois Bohemians. BroBos! Young, comfortable and inclined toward creativity, they enjoy a utopian-seeming existence marked by strolls down tree-lined streets, carefully chosen foods and leisurely weekends spent in coffee bars and parks. An existence only occasionally marred by the realization that this is not the hopped-up New York they came to conquer."

In the same week that Gawker taught us that Brooklyn isn't cool anymore b/c everyone talks about it too fucking much, comes news that we are all BroBos....or wannabe BroBos Well, I guess not all of us, but...eh, who the fuck am I kidding: ALL OF US.

The story goes on to wax rhapsodic about the Brooklyn Flea, organic kale and all sorts of other aspirational bullshit.

And of course, they also manage to throw in some pretty choice Park Slope insults:

"I mean, I didn't move to New York for the parks," said Liesl Schillinger, a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review who lives in the East Village. "I can't go to Cousin John's to get coffee and a muffin and then go to some mid-level Mexican place on a corner [La Taqueria, methinks?] with a lot of strollers, but that's not what I came to New York for."

and this one:

"Lizzie Widdicombe, an editorial assistant for The New Yorker in her 20s who lives in the East Village, said that while some aspects of BroBo life—the organic food stores, for instance—are appealing, she feels that overall, the outer borough is not for her.

"Sometimes I'll go to a bar there where people are playing bocce and feel like I'm missing out on something, and then I remember I don't really care," Ms. Widdicombe said over the weekend."

Lizzie was seriously going for the jugular with that Union Hall comment.

Anyway, this is all mildly inneresting, I guess. I mean, I don't have any illusions that I will ever be typing out the word BroBo again, even though I think I am one. And I'm totally ok with that.

True confessions: mostly I dig this sort of shit b/c I'm fascinated by the process of creating a non-story story out of thin air, that ends up getting picked up by every major blog and news outlet (see: kids menus at Fornino).

What do you think? Are you a BroBo?

(via NY Observer)