Some thoughts on AOTY lists, sandwiches, and swinging back at sameness.
They had the best sandwiches at the Greek Deli.
It was (I assume) a lot like a bodega might be in New York. You’d order, and two middle-aged Greek men would get to work building the best sandwich you’d ever had—a title lasting only until your next one—while also yelling over their shoulder at you for reading the magazines. It was always open right when you needed it, and the food was priced to move. In other words, perfect for the starving-artist crowd or broke teenagers. Dealer’s choice.
This was one part of a rich tapestry that made the neighborhood what it was—quirky, eclectic, and just sketchy enough to be interesting. The streets are named alphabetically. I think most readers know Elliot Smith’s Alphabet Town. This is that place. They’re here, and it was one more part of what made the place cool. You could find good food, good bars, and good buys. And none of them ever appeared in a tourist guide. The most mainstream thing going was an Arby’s that I’m still half convinced was a front. Otherwise, it was all names you’d never heard of, but if said around PDX’ers of a certain age, would light their eyes up. Places like Quality Pie—which I can somehow still smell—Foothill Broiler, and Elephant Delicatessen. The latter two were for the waking hours. The rest lived on the back side of the block.
Even if you didn’t have the munchies weren’t hungry, there was plenty to see. This was, of course, before the age of the cellphone, but you didn’t need one; you could just walk around and notice cool things. Something interesting might happen, or it might not. Didn’t matter. The environment was so engaging, the vibe so electric, that it created its own kind of dopamine rush. You felt like a part of the place and were immersed in it. It was being present before lifestyle coaches convinced you that you needed that in your life.
And then the VC money came.
I recently saw a quote that said something to the effect of “When a Starbucks moves in, it’s good news for property values, and bad news for the tattoo artists.” And boy, is that ever true. As the values rise, the edges get sanded off. The homogeneity creeps in. A feeling of sameness starts to bloom. Things look nice, but it’s a Potemkin village covering the hole where the neighborhood’s soul once was.
I don’t have to tell you a similar thing has happened online. Eulogies for our favorite spots have become a semi-regular occurrence here, as have new rallying cries to bring back Web 1.0-era style blogging. The cool, quirky blogs & websites that used to light up our brains have been bought up and boxed out. Private equity treats publications not as ecosystems with character, but as assets and obstacles. Buy, strip for parts, eliminate competition, move on. Lather, rinse, repeat. Culture becomes a spreadsheet entry. What was once idiosyncratic becomes interchangeable.
Being cool doesn’t grant immunity to a blog or website; in fact, it may have the opposite effect. Today I learned Grantland’s been gone for ten years. Ten years already! Spots like Deadspin weren’t bought because the VC crowd thought they were neat or a good source of viewpoints. They bought them to wring cash out of them and leave the carcass of 1s and 0s (and writing careers) out to rot in the sun.
That is not the point of buying a beloved, profitable publication (or any business). The point is to make the private equity firm more profitable. The Denver Post and Deadspin and Vice News are just widgets, endlessly interchangeable in the service of maximizing shareholder value. Only chumps make money by selling goods or services these days; the real geniuses rely on management fees, deal fees, dividend recapitalizations, real estate deals, and the like. That allows—requires!—a private equity firm to divorce its incentives from that of its own portfolio company, making it, at best, agnostic to whether the company lives or dies. In many cases, the best decision for the firm is the one that directly undermines the company it controls. The reason there are no weird blogs anymore is that it’s more fruitful to drive them out of business.
Each year, as we hit AOTY season, I notice more of the same homogeneity drifting in. I’m one of those sickos who will read any list I come across, and it’s been dispiriting to see a lot of sites simply cycling the same 50 titles around. The order might be different, but that’s it. If you have the same affliction as I do, you’re probably already rattling them off in your head.
A site doesn’t make money on cool points or by surfacing the best band from Spokane you’ve never heard of. They make it from ad revenue and clicks, and that means you’ve got to have some big names. Sabrina Carpenter (or the hipster equivalent) makes for a great way to serve up ads and drive up that CPM rate.
That’s not to say things should swing so far the other way that no one has any idea what you’re talking about. There’s a danger in going so far underground or obscure that no one can relate. I get it. The deli served shift workers from the nearby hospital, bums, and kids like me in equal measure. It was niche in the geographic sense but had relatively broad appeal. A blog can—and should—do that too.
It’s not all doom and gloom—this year I’ve seen more pushback against this homogenization than ever before. Zines are back. People are finally (!) bailing on meta sites. Music blogs are having a moment. The ones that are thriving? The ones that refuse to lose their voice or tone it down. You can be distinctive without drifting into the uncanny-valley version of “friendly.”
One of my favorite discoveries this year was a blog featuring two people writing about records I largely knew by heart. That relatability got me in the door, but their voice kept me there. There’s huge value in that—doubly so as AI (another best boy of the VC crowd—what is it with these people?!) creeps into everything.
If you want a beige overview of a record, Gemini’s got you covered (we can talk about the ethics another day). You want to hear a review from a real person who actually listened to it? A summary isn’t going to cut it. And again, it’s heartening to see more and more people turning back toward this preference for authenticity.
These big shiny sites don’t owe writers free traffic, or really anything for that matter. We also don’t owe them our attention. There’s no obligation to only visit certain pages or hope a faceless algorithm serves us up our next favorite record (spoiler alert: it probably won’t, but someone writing a blog likely will).
Seth Werkheiser makes the point nicely, saying.
Friends are filters. People are guides. Pick up something in print that still requires some editorial discernment, or find your local college radio station. Email the writers of the newsletters you like. Go find some blogs again.
Finding those spots takes a little work—we’ve been served stuff for so long, actively looking for it feels like work again—but just like finding a cool neighborhood, the end result is worth it. As AOTY season hits critical mass, thankfully, there are still a lot of places fighting to keep that spirit alive.
The last time I saw NW Portland, it was unrecognizable. I knew exactly where I was—the street names are about all that hasn’t changed—but nothing looked familiar. It’s got a name purpose-built for travel brochures (“The Pearl”), and a lot of nice stores selling things for people three or four tax brackets above me. It’s all easy on the eyes and hard on the heart. The edgiest thing about it today is how Couch Street is pronounced.
Is the Greek deli still there? Good question. I didn’t see it, but I was also busy trying not to hit people looking down at their phones.
As always, thanks for being here.
KA—
Kevin Sent 
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