There's a humdinger of a City Room post from yesterday....that resulted in one of the world's greatest blog responses.
Back story! Yesterday, City Room reported on a young Ivy League graduate who lost her class ring down a grate on 42nd Street. She wrote about the great lengths that some helpful folks from the MTA and Con Ed went to in order to help her retrieve the ring. She posted on this slice-of-life from the city on her blog.
Of course, this brought out some haters. While some readers enjoyed this one-of-millions-of-stories-that-unfold-here-each-day tale....others....didn't. From the comments:
First, I can’t believe you reported this story about this absolutely absurd space cadet who cost the city, literally, several thousands of dollars because she couldn’t get it together, after several years of having a too-large ring, to have it resized.
Second, and then you report the entire ridicu-blog. She sounds more like a high school kid.
Third, I find it hard to believe she graduated from Penn. Just doesn’t fit the known facts as we see them here.
Heartwarming this story was not. She needs to be reprimanded by a grown-up.
And:
No kidding. How hard is it for this ditz to have her ring re-sized?
Maybe she should go back to Pennsylvania. I hope someone in the Con Edison accounts billing department sends her an invoice for her stupidity.
And:
As a New Yorker, an Asian American and an Ivy Leaguer (Columbia University), my opinion is that Jean Hsu is definitely a pain in the butt. Unfortunately, NYC does continue to attract absolutely clueless individuals like her.
Meanwhile, the young woman with the class ring is upset...and the episode reminds her why she should "NEVER BLOG AGAIN."
In a post on her Essential Luxuries blog today, she writes:
But how is my uplifting story TWISTED by the cynical and narrow-minded people of the heinous Internet!!?! I am some stupid moron ditz who was practically asking for my ring to fall in a grate just so I could see how many people would be willing to come running to my beck and call. Wasting both time and money. WRONG, FOLKS.
She goes on to chastise the Times and Sam Roberts, who wrote the post:
Can I just first mention that for a reporter and editor of the New York Times, he wrote a completely disappointing and pointless blog. I know that my own blog is pretty pointless at times, but I also don't often think my writing or opinion is worthy of being published in the New York Times. And I write it to humor my friends who GET ME. And my pointlessness. But Mr. Roberts could DEFINITELY have done a better job in getting the ACTUAL POINT ACROSS about my story. Or at least formulating his own opinion about the situation.
Anyway, if you're interested, she sets the record straight today about what happened, corrects the Times and has words for each of the haters (like the one "ridicu-NAZI") who said horrible things about her.
Her last paragraph:
Before I depart, I wanted to take a moment to thank all my friends for being supportive, enjoying the story like they were supposed to, and ensuring me that all aforementioned haters have no lives and will be probably be really busy calling into WCBS tomorrow while listening to my radio interview. HI HATERS.
