Nick Mamatas (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} nihilistic_kid) wrote,@ 2005-10-24 09:46:00 |
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Meanwhile, back in the States
Books are the new snobbery, according to a survey today. Social competitiveness about which titles we read has become one of the new mass forces of the era and only middle-aged people are relatively free of it.
Driven partly by pressure from incessant literary prize shortlists, more than one in three consumers in London and the south-east admit having bought a book "solely to look intelligent", the YouGov survey says.
It finds one in every eight young people confessing to choosing a book "simply to be seen with the latest shortlisted title". This herd instinct dwindles to affect only one in 20 over-50 year-olds.
That's the UK. Here in the US, of course, the best way to get laid is to look like a moron, so it's Harry Potter and The da Vinci Code on the subways if you're bookish, an iPod and a small puddle of drool on your lap if you're not. Then there'soldcharliebrown who thinks a four-door car means you'll be a hit with the ladies, because women want someone who is "a family man", and children need their own door out of the car.
So, what dumb-ass things have YOU done in order to attract members of the sex of your preference? Me, I have a livejournal.
Books are the new snobbery, according to a survey today. Social competitiveness about which titles we read has become one of the new mass forces of the era and only middle-aged people are relatively free of it.
Driven partly by pressure from incessant literary prize shortlists, more than one in three consumers in London and the south-east admit having bought a book "solely to look intelligent", the YouGov survey says.
It finds one in every eight young people confessing to choosing a book "simply to be seen with the latest shortlisted title". This herd instinct dwindles to affect only one in 20 over-50 year-olds.
That's the UK. Here in the US, of course, the best way to get laid is to look like a moron, so it's Harry Potter and The da Vinci Code on the subways if you're bookish, an iPod and a small puddle of drool on your lap if you're not. Then there's
oldcharliebrown who thinks a four-door car means you'll be a hit with the ladies, because women want someone who is "a family man", and children need their own door out of the car. So, what dumb-ass things have YOU done in order to attract members of the sex of your preference? Me, I have a livejournal.
