Derrick Rose and Fan Highlight Reels

Derrick Rose became the youngest player ever to win the NBA's Most Valuable Player award today.  By this point, even if you don't live in Chicago, you might know why.  If not, Sports Illustrated's version of Derrick Rose Central essentially provides all the numbers necessary to make a convincing case that he was the most dominant player in the league.  I'm not going to try to express in too many words the thrill of watching Rose play (though it's something akin to watching a man run downhill and jump off cliffs over and over again for 48 minutes).  Rather, it's a good opportunity to think about the phenomenon of fan-generated highlight films--and how they are changing the nature of sports fandom.

Why it's Important to Start Using the Past Tense when it Comes to Hipsters

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="560" caption="Photo Credit: New York Magazine"][/caption]

Last October, Mark Greif published an appraisal of hipster culture in New York Magazine.  Greif is one of the founders of the supposedly-annoying magazine and online journal N+1.  I don't know enough about it to say whether I like the pubication or not (although characterizations of it as an elitist and pseudo-academic journal lead me to the assumption--if I am to be honest with myself--that I would probably dig it).  But I do think that the conceit of the article--assigning the past tense to consider hipster culture as a historically bound phenomenon--is a useful one.