Really?

[bwilder]

While I do read Slate pretty frequently, I think this screenshot puts a fine point on the fact that I'm not the audience they have in mind.

Comments

[julianyap]

I don't know if that's fair, I think of myself as part of Slate's target audience, yet the explainers during much of the election season were thing I thought were pretty obvious.

[bwilder]

To my mind, it's cool if The Explainer is pedantic - that's its deal. But this is a full blown article about what an 808 that assumes you are from Mars or need to catch up with what the kids have been doing since before "Planet Rock."

[redbeard]

I guess I'm slate's audience, then! HA!

[cricket_pg]

What's especially funny about that headline is that if you know what "808" refers to (I didn't), then you already know why he would use it in the album title - the subset of people who can identify 808 as a drum machine but don't understand its significance is basically zero.

To be fair, though, I usually find Slate's banners to be really stupid - for example, the headline of the actual Explainer article is "What's an 808?", which makes much more sense.

[bwilder]

YES. Cricket gets a gold star for her analysis of exactly what is wrong with that headline. And while Slate does specialize in dumb banners, they often don't make me feel like I have no place being there.

[nafe]

I thought Al Gore invented hip hop.

[bloodstones]

No no. Didn't he invent the internet?

[bwilder]

He's a busy man. Anyone who has watched the man dance can tell that that's where hiphop came from, and anyone who's heard him talk can tell that LOLCATS were a glimmer in his eye first. This is the truth.

[latemodel]

I find this hillarious, since Slate has been catering to a black audience with their "the root" section.

[anonymous]

On the other hand, I did enjoy Slate's affirmation of my undercurrent of annoyance with West.

--kStyle