The Onion had a typically funny post, Pretty Cute Watching Boston Residents Play Daily Game Of ‘Big City’.
Boston Globe columnist Tom Keane took umbrage, and responded with a spirited defense of Beantown, Boston’s big city game:
‘Pretty Cute Watching Boston Residents Play Daily Game Of ‘Big City’ ” runs the much-discussed headline in the satirical publication The Onion, a sharp jab with some uncomfortable truth. To be a “world class city” has been our aspiration for decades, a regular refrain from the Menino administration. We wish it were so, but worry it’s not. The Onion rubs it in: Boston’s “a live-action role-playing adventure in which Bostonians buzz about their daily routines in a delightful hubbub of excitement as if they lived in a major American metropolis.”And what really is a major metropolis?
The Globe columnist then goes on to argue that Boston is better than the other “world class” cities:
I could go on, but you get the idea. Indeed, a variety of surveys regularly rank us as one of the most desirable places to live in the nation. A recent Business Week analysis, for instance, put Boston fourth (just behind San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.). No wonder: Boston is green, clean, healthy, wealthy, smart, and employed. But what that means, of course, is that as a real city, we’re an utter failure.
I figured the commenters would demand that he “let it go, man, it’s just The Onion.” But no, they took this all pretty seriously.
If you are arguing with The Onion about whether your city is world class, you already have made The Onion’s point.
I’ll say it for them. Let it go, man, it’s just The Onion.
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