snoburbia, the blog

but i need a hook

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Lately, I have been obsessive about reading the College Confidential discussion forums. It’s an insight into snoburbia like no other. Like this (troll):

 I'm a rising senior at a large unknown public school - i have decent grades and ECs but would retaking a 2370 to get a 2400 be worth it for admissions?

I am ranked #1 out of 700 students, 4.0 UW GPA, 14 APs, 1570/1600 and 800 on writing.
SAT IIs:800 Chem, Physics, US Hist, Math 2, Literature, 790 Biology

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one used ikea armchair, $200

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In the snoburbs, everyone thinks his secondhand stuff is worth more than anyone else’s.

Take any Craigslist furniture listing. You might see two different listings for the same 2-year-old Ikea armchair. Let’s call it Ektorp. The used Ektorp in Dupont Circle, in downtown D.C., is selling for $30. But the used Ektorp in McLean is listed for $200.

After all, it’s always better to have a chair that was sat on by Seven jeans than by vintage Levi’s.

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crunchy people love to boycott

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The CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, recently declared war in a Wall Street Journal op-ed:

While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

He even quoted Margaret Thatcher, the patron saint of the CEO overclass.

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His sights were aimed squarely at... um, yeah… that’s right: his Whole Foods customer base – the entirety of snoburbia. Oops.

Say his customers: I’ll see you one box of gluten-free quinoa and raise you one bag of Himilania Cacao Dusted Dark Chocolate Covered Goji Berries. A Boycott Whole Foods Facebook group already has 24,500 members and liberal bloggers like Daily Kos are also taking up the call.

Hello? Didn’t he know? Crunchy people love a chance to boycott stuff. It’s what passes for a riot in snoburbia.

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do let's have some cake

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Vacation homes enable us all to relax and be carefree; they are where we relish time with our families, away from the demands of work....

Editor's note from Editor-in-Chief Margaret Russell, Elle Decor, July/August 2009

Us all?

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only a mac is pc

 

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I met a friend at a Panera in a nearby suburb outside of snoburbia. There were many people using the popular chain restaurant as an office, or for surfing the internet, their Dells and HP minis humming.

But what struck me is that every last one of them was using a PC – with nary a white or silver MacBook in sight! In any cafe in overclass snoburbia, it is precisely the opposite.

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the art of name-dropping

 

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The art of name-dropping requires that one match up name to audience, and the practiced name-dropper is likely to feel immense frustration when the match isn’t there.

from Snobbery, The American Version, by Joseph Epstein

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This quote made me laugh out loud because I have a dear, older family friend who loves to name-drop. Sometimes you can see the struggle on her face as she comes up with a stealthy twist in the conversation that will serve to mention Walter Cronkite or Art Buchwald, whom she knew from spending summers at The Vineyard.

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**crickets** and black dogs

 

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This morning I went to the local Starbucks. And. There. Was. A. Parking. Space.

All of snoburbia has cleared out of town for the month of August. The entire East Coast overclass is at a lake in New Hampshire or Maine, in the mountains of Italy or Montana, or at the beaches of OBX or the Hamptons.

Or maybe they went to the Cape or the Vineyard, where you are not allowed to get on the ferry unless you are wearing a sweatshirt with a big black dog on it.

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money camp

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not a blue-collar town

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The controversial Purple Line addition to Washington, D.C.’s Metro subway system has whipped up a panic in overclass Bethesda and Chevy Chase, ostensibly over the loss of a popular trail. This, from Silver Spring blogger JustUpthePike:

Says Jim O'Brien, Chevy Chase resident and member of the Columbia Country Club, who wrote the [Washington] Post today (representing himself) as to why the Purple Line makes no sense:

    This is not a blue-collar town; Bethesda has no jobs for people with low-to-moderate skills. It was planned that way by the county in the 1960s, and it's what we have now: a town full of restaurants and condominiums and office buildings, housing college-educated workers and professionals... Where would you build a factory or even a warehouse? There is no reason to build a transitway to attract workers if there are no jobs for them in town.

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