May 7, 2006

You can understand a lot about life in America today...

... from reading the roommates ads on Craigslist. Or so this article is designed to make you think. But in fact, you learn almost nothing. People don't want to live with smokers or other people's pets. But as a source of insight into the ever-changing subtleties of human behavior, Craigslist proved arid.

3 comments:

Ron said...

The Times -- trying to show how hip they are? Have they been reading Village Voice ads from 30 years ago? What's next for the NYT, the leet edition?

Ron said...

Dave: correct. U r0x!

Peter Hoh said...

What I found interesting was the observation that the nature of classified ads changes when people no longer have to pay by the word. Now people can go on and on in a medium that used to encourage verbal restraint.

Speaking of alphabet soup (from the article about the French love of acronyms) the old system of fee-based classified ads drove the development of acronyms. Why pay for "single white male" when SWM would suffice?