NYT's Lola Ogunnaike Is Learning From the Best
After Times culture reporter Lola Ogunnaike was suspended in October for appearing as a guest host on The View without her editors' permission, we wondered whether this meant fewer fawning profiles of Scott Storch and Flavor Flav. But after a nearly monthlong break, Ogunnaike's been back with a vengeance—and it seems as though she's been taking lessons from Thursday Styles trend-manufacturer Stephanie Rosenbloom.
Rosenbloom's latest articles include "They Are So Going to Jingle Ball This Year," a trenchant expose of the annual teenybopper tradition at Madison Square Garden ("Gaggles of girls will emerge from stretch limousines and luxury buses to fill the December air with squeals"); "Online R.S.V.P.'s: A Simple No Just Won't Do," which we thought was a little out-of-date; and a personal favorite, "Personal Space Gets Harder to Defend as the Population Grows," a timely, thoughtful discussion of close talkers.
Ogunnaike, for her part, has also been hitting the trend pieces hard lately, including yesterday's Styles piece "Pinned Between 'Hi' and Goodbye," which made us think that for a moment we were reading The Onion. To wit:
Year round, it almost seems part of the job description for certain people in the service business — cabdrivers, massage therapists, barbers — to share their ideas about everything from child rearing to religion, with little prompting.
This piece comes hot on the heels of "I Heard It Through the Diet Grapevine," a late-ish piece about the "master cleanse"; "'Yours Truly,' the E-Mail Variations" ("Etiquette and communications experts agree that it is becoming increasingly difficult to say goodbye"); and "For a Fresh Mix, the Retro Kids Hit Rewind," her discussion of a group of black kids who are stuck in the '80s ("While it's common for white hipsters and fashionistas of all stripes to fill out their wardrobes with vintage finds, the hip-hop generation has looked askance at wearing somebody's hand-me-downs").
Between the two of them, the Times pretty much has a lock on the fake trend piece. But we can't help but think that this is all part of Ogunnaike's plan to remake herself in Joy Behar's sick, twisted vision of a young, hip black woman. How Rosie feels about black people, still TK.
Pinned Between Hi and Goodbye [NYT]
They Are So Going to Jingle Ball This Year [NYT]
Earlier:
Earlier: We Knew That Evite Article Sounded Familiar, Several Times Over
Earlier: Chingchonggate: Rosie's Last Shout
