Crimes of journalism, including but not limited to sex, trends and really white subheads

By media farm

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"HAVE A NICE LIFE." It's no "Joe Goes Bananas," but it still might be the Herald Headline of the Year. And it certainly made up for the surprising lack of sizzle in the tabloid's Neil Entwistle trail coverage. Christening the guy the "Bizarre Brit"? Reminding everybody that dude owned a computer made by Toshiba? We expected more. Seriously. What a waste of a dead baby.

MEDIA FARM'S AWARD for Whitest Subhead Ever goes to this week's City Weekly cover story about, uh, "hoopin'-it-up teenagers." You've been warned: "Hoop, there it is. In Jamaica Plain, unlike in some 'hoods, b-ballers win their basket case." Holy fuck, that's awful.

WE'RE SENDING our Really?? of the Week out to Boston Magazine, which dropped the words "fresh-from-work yuppies" into this month's service piece about eating outside. As in, "fresh-from-work yuppies and postcard photographers gather here for some type of bullshit or other..." In this context, it doesn't appear that the dreaded "Y" word was deployed with the intention of scaring anybody away from the place in question. Quite the opposite. It's almost as galling as trying to classify $5 pints as "cheap beer." Which the blurb in question also managed to do. Why not drop in a Good Will Hunting reference and call it a day?

SO THE GLOBE has recently discovered that some Sox fans don't like Sox fans in pink hats. It's a years old trend, the paper admits, but it's a trend nonetheless. Better glib and late than never, right?

Next to Yankees caps and Giants jerseys, the pink Red Sox cap has become the most polarizing piece of clothing a Bostonian can wear. Fans of the hats think they're simply a cute way to show their love for the Sox. Haters say pink-hat owners are latecomers who only support the Sox because it's suddenly cool - even fashionable - to do so. Pink-hat wearers haven't suffered sufficiently, they reason. No one suffers in pink.

The article goes on to cite "vitriolic comments" from Barstool Sports that are "unfit for publication" and solicit an opinion from Sara Faith Alterman—because, apparently, mediocrity at one's craft is qualification enough to fill the expert talking head quote tk tk slot in a lazy trend story.

(At this point in the column, Media Farm could revisit some Alterman classics. Like the time she wrote an article about "guy places" so she could gratuitously hurl the word "dick" around. Nah. Better to just see what kinds of filth the kids on Barstool hurled at the story. It was a refreshing diversity of opinion, too: Equal parts "fuck those people" and "I would enjoy fucking those people.") Block quotes activate!

"I guess the bottom line is that as long as the majority of Pink Hats are hot girls, I'm not going to have a problem with them." "I will take a masshole any day over some stupid broad from the south yelling hey yall and hee ya all day. Most of them are half retarded because there daddy is their uncle too." "It's not possible for someone to be a real fan if they choose to watch the games on TV, instead of overpaying to go to the park and not see as much of the game, because a gaggle of anorexic/zit covered college chicks are too busy standing up in front of you giggling and talking on their cell or texting their friends trying to get on TV or hit on some Steroid Monster in a Varitek Jersey. If I wanted to watch the game at the Kells, I'd go to the fucking Kells."

THE IMPROPER UNLEASHED its "Sex and Love Issue" last week. The highlight was a chat with Junot Diaz, the MIT writing professor who is 39 and describes himself as "the ugliest guy in the room" – facts that, obviously, mean he's all young and sexxxy! Whoo trends and words and Pulitzer Prizes and stuff!!

The Improper included excerpts from a Diaz story that ran in the New Yorker six months ago. It was a sexy story! In that spirit, we present excerpts from those excerpts follow. Enjoyz!

You ... girlfriend ... tender ... big Dominican ass ... ass ... press your face against that ass ... bite ... after-school special ... she ... one huge forearm ... muscles ... warm ... tissue paper ... undress ... steroid-addicted block ... cooking ... politics ... she ... a ... boys ... in bed ... sex ... wonderful ... you are also fucking this beautiful freshman girl named Laxmi ... the ... the ... the ... pelagic sadness.