I am either in love with New Yorker articles from the moment I start reading them or I look at them as putrid piles of indulgent bourgeois crap. This one falls somewhere in between. I generally love the New yorker articles that go super indepth on subjects, such as the drug war in Mexico or the whistle language of a remote tribe in Zimbabwe but its the ones that inject their own opinion on top of what could be a good story I feel like Miss Orlean really wanted to project her ideas of innocence onto this poor little Wyoming kid. I feel like she builds him up to be "DAW" worthy cute and then asks him tough questions about polution or Magic Johnsons having AIDS to show that childlike innocence all grownups romanticize and wish they still had.
I couldn't hate the whole article though because, c'mon, he's so damn cute!!!!
"What's the most important thing in the world?"
"Game Boy." Pause. "No, the world. The world is the most important thing in the world."
Personally, the answer to that one is easy. Screw the world.
But something that bothered me the way the story was written that I realize isn't a huge deal but I still feel like pointing out. If the genders were flipped and a middle age writer for the New Yorker spent all his time following around a 5th grade girl adn her friends and asking them questions he'd get locked up and have his van and all its candy confiscated.
I loved the big blocks of quotes she threw in but like a lot of New Yorker articles this thing really could have used a more concise editor to trim it down a little. I also get that sense of condescenion on the middle class you get in some of their articles such as when Colin's talking about how expensive college is and how his mom was in the 4th tier of the publisher's house sweepstakes. I feel like she could've left that out and still maintained his innocence without making him look stupid and poor.
I would've preferred an article from Nintendo Power personally.
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