SURPRISE! Bonus Hate Read for you today, because hating on New York calls for a double-whammy at least… ✨ Hate Read Season 2 is brought to you by the legendary champion of indie media herself, Ruth Ann Harnisch, of the Harnisch Foundation. ✨
A few summers ago, I was driving through what could be charitably called the downtown of Cody, Wyoming when I noticed a bumper sticker on the dark blue Ford F-150 idling ahead of me at a red light. “Wyoming is Full” it said. I vaguely remember there being an outline of the state alongside the slogan, but Wyoming is a perfect rectangle so that probably isn’t right. Wyoming is the least densely populated state in the continental US, with about 6 people per square mile. A lot of my father’s family is buried in Cheyenne and Laramie, in little municipal cemeteries that look plucked out of a spaghetti western set. There are twice as many cows as there are humans in Wyoming, and thousands of wild horses roam the prairies. It is perhaps the least “full” place in the Lower 48, but people like the guy in that truck treat it like the state is bursting at the seams and losing its identity in the process. It’s an insecure provincialism that I’ve only seen matched by one other type of person: The ‘Native’ New Yorker. The Native New Yorker will have you believe that being born and raised anywhere in the five boroughs is an non-transferable blessing that bestows on the recipient an instinctual understanding of how the City operates, the rules whispered to them by radiator steam and the Mister Softee jingle. The Native New Yorker is less resident than symbiote, one that feeds on a diet of untoasted bagels and correcting people who say “in line” instead of “on line.” The Native New Yorker thinks that a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich might as well be included in the city’s Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, or that their appetite for walking should be investigated by anthropologists. Native New Yorkers mind their business and ignore conflict like no one else they say, as if Wisconsin and all of England didn’t exist. The joke about other insufferable populations like vegans and Harvard graduates applies here just as well: How do you know someone is a native New Yorker? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you. All that ego belies a collective, crippling insecurity, though. The Native New Yorker knows deep down that the most interesting thing about them is where they’re from rather than who they are. They have nothing else to offer and as such trade much on their geographical luck rather than, say, having a personality that isn’t a Katamari ball of defunct music venues and phrases that start with “Well, when I was growing up this used to be.” They need an entire city’s worth of concrete to pave over their deficiencies. You know you have them cornered when they yelp “transplant!” before scurrying back to their parent’s Park Slope brownstone or Upper East Side condo. They would trip over their Timberlands if you said so, but the Native New Yorker is a sort of urban bumpkin, fearful of outsiders and the ideas they bring. It’s a revanchist politics for people who have lost their edge to the kids from Cleveland and Columbus. “Go back to Ohio” might as well be a white flag, or the bumper sticker on a Ford in Wyoming. —T. ChalametICYMI…You are reading a pseudonymous post from a friendly neighborhood writer as part of Season 2 of our limited-run Hate Read pop-up newsletter. Make sure you’re subscribed to Deez Links to get ‘em all safely in your inbox, the better to hate-forward.You’re currently a free subscriber to Deez Links. For the full Deez, upgrade your subscription.
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