Tempest in a Teahouse
A snark-fest broke out yesterday after some of the tres voguish Manhattan bloggers got into a frightful tizzy over a stabbing at a teashop in their trendy neighborhood. What started out as a pure block-level act of citizen journalism -- "PANIC ON THE STREET OF RIVINGTON" ultragrrrl shouted on her blog -- devolved into a puddle of bloggy barf and Gawker set the tone.
Bad news for downtown scenesters wanting a $12 cup of tea and a vegan muffin: At approximately 9 AM this morning, someone was stabbed on Rivington Street between Orchard and Ludlow, just outside of downtown technobaldie Moby’s Teany teahouse. . . .We can confirm only that the weapon was not a heroin-infused cashew butter sandwich and Moby himself is not yet a suspect.
Elsewhere, there began "long, numbing arguments about hipsters, yuppies, and whether the Lower East Side still has any "edge," as collision detection put it. A sampler:
Whoa dude. This is totally not cool! I was planning on playing a little game of Hacky Sack in front of Teany's this afternoon. This TOTALLY messes up my game... and my vibe.
Obviously it was a hate crime. Everyone hates vegans.
The impending hipster holocaust is coming, nignogs!
The irony meltodwn didn't stop with the "content," either. The Gawker post was serving up delightful Google ads for an "English Tea Store" and a tea sale at NaturalWebStore.com. Ah, context.