A Brief Blog Profile: The Awl
by Thomas Hynes
The Awl is a New York City-based website founded in 2008 by David Cho. If forced to give an answer I'd say the site covers culture and current events. But that seems to oversimplify it. That answer, while somewhat appropriate, seems to miss the mark. The folks over at The Awl "believe that there is no topic unworthy of scrutiny, so long that it is approached from an intelligent angle." And that's refreshing.
It brings me to my two favorite things about The Awl. One, they write intelligently. Two, they write about things that other people simply do not. Today, I'm reading about the age old conflict between Republican candidates using liberal rocker's songs as part of their campaign rallies, the frighteningly accurate memory of the common crow, and this seriously awesome dissection of the McRib as a form of arbitrage. And tomorrow, there will be more pages of just as random and thoughtful posts.
On their blog, The Awl's tagline is "Be Less Stupid." And clearly they're helping that effort, working to make a home for the well-written, long-form blog post. But look, it's not just essays here at The Awl. There's plenty of silly videos and current songs and other viral memes that make the web the weird and frenetic place it is. So yeah, The Awl's all over the place, but so is our culture, so is the Internet.
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