Why are you reading this?
Ordered list helps you understand newspaper usage
DYLAN FERGUSON
Fact: On Jan. 1, 2007, the world’s oldest newspaper, the Stockholm-based Post-och Inrikes Tidningar, (English translation: "mail and domestic tidings") which has been continually published since it was founded by Queen Kristina of Sweden in 1645, discontinued circulation and went online-only.
It was another nail in what, without jumping to any sensationalist assumptions, appears to be an oddly coffin-shaped box that the modern newspaper has found itself in.
But when you think about, why shouldn’t the newspaper pass on and go to a better place? A better place with binary code? Virtually all the information you could possibly want is now available online, quickly, efficiently, "scroll-friendly-like," and while you’re finding it you can strengthen your Facebook friend-empire and observe a chipmunk turn its head.
So fuck the newspaper! Right? I mean, all it’s really good for is as a super-sneaky face-shield when following someone from behind. But even that’s not a good argument! In 2007, fake moustaches, glasses and facial appendages are varied, easily available and, often, hilarious.
Yet the fact remains that many of us still read the newspaper avidly. I do, and I know you do, because you are right now. (Note: I suppose I must acknowledge the possibility that you are perusing the online edition of the Manitoban, and to that I have nothing to say). Were we to be honest, we, "The Newspaper Readers," would come out of the closet and admit that 99 per cent or more of everything we read about in those crinkly pages will never, ever affect our lives in the slightest measurable sense.
So why do we do it?
Well, after several years of observation, compiling empirical data, soul-searching, and in-the-lab study, I’ve come up with the key reasons, in point form, why you, the modern man or woman, reads the newspaper.
1. You have one issue, "Your Issue," we shall say, which you follow religiously. A big issue probably, though your interest in it is likely random. Perhaps it is THE IRAQ WAR or THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RUN-UP or THE PALESTINIAN CONFLICT or PARIS HILTON. Regardless, there is normally at least one story written about "Your Issue" in every paper, and you inhale each one like a comforting soup broth prepared especially for you. You keep up on every development, your bored, urban mind is constantly sloshing and swirling about the details and the names of key players, and when you get drunk you keep talking about "Your Issue," incessantly, and your friends get pissed off at you.
2. Scene: Starbucks coffeehouse. I can’t just buy a coffee. That dude behind the counter will totally think I’m cheap. No, wait, I don’t care what he thinks, but . . . I better buy something else, otherwise it’ll be a waste, and I have to use debit anyways. Man, those pastries are so expensive, well . . . I don’t see a price anywhere, but you just know they’ll be expensive! I’ll get a newspaper with my coffee. The Sun, that’s cheap. No! That dude will think I’m just getting it for the page-five girl. Better get the Globe. Ha! I can’t believe that fucker actually thought I was going to buy the Sun. What does he think this is, Second Cup?
3. You like to catch up on "Your
Villain." (Note: nobody actually has heroes anymore.) For example, my villain is Vladimir Putin, president of Russia. Oh Vlad, what have you been up to lately? Poisoned any dissident spies? Had any unworshipful journalists capped on their way home with frigid Russian efficiency? Oh, shirtless, are we? Vlad, your chiseled truck-grill of an abdomen appears as hard and frightening as your rhetoric, and as sleek and smooth as your stony-eyed Bond-villain bullet-head.
4. Scene: The morning after. Eggs on the table; the apartment’s furnishings are shabby, but have a certain je ne sais quoi (English translation: "lava lamp"). My God, I was so drunk last night, I have nothing to talk to this person about. I can’t remember whether or not he/she said they have to work this morning, will they be leaving soon? God, don’t make eye contact, then you’ll have to talk! Okay, bury your head in the financial section, then you’ll appear distracted in an intelligent, aloof way. Maybe he/she will just leave without ever having to know you’ve forgotten his/her name.
5. You gorge yourself, with secret pleasure, on every story that involves death. Then you shake your head, tut-tut, and remark to whoever’s within earshot that not enough’s being done about the situation. Then you take another sip of coffee.
6. At the very least, you "headline surf," and try to get a general idea of what’s going on in the world. You do this so that you feel like you’re a part of planet Earth, and therefore less insignificant, before you finish your dregs and continue on with your insignificant day. You experience little tingles, minor thrills if you will, in knowing that the world is a great, huge place full of war, famine, political intrigue, cute animals, and battles against nature and poverty. Ultimately, however, the news only reinforces what you already know: that you play no part whatsoever in this grand opera, that if you were to perish tomorrow, the only effect it would have on this chronicle would be recorded, in six-point font, in a section reserved for that purpose, just to put the minds of people like you at ease, and that’s only if it’s the local rag! Otherwise, you are meaningless, utterly useless, a little mote of nothingness floating, unnoticed, in one little calm corner of this great and raging sea! It’s a huge and mad world, and it doesn’t even care to acknowledge the absence of knowledge about you, tiny worthless dot! Because that’s what you are! Your existence doesn’t register! It never will! You’re a purposeless cell in the organism! Inconsequential! Invisible! Fuck you!
7. The comics are funny.
