Journal GMontag's Journal: Solved the "Group Think" TNR puzzle 2
Continuing from this JE, I finally found a freebie copy: click here then open the first link in a new window
Elspeth Reeve wrote a very good objective article about rooms-to-share ads in DC and the attitudes of those who post them. She notices many of the same things I have noticed in the dating ads that are discussed in the Rant & Rave section of Craigslist, usually variants of 'open minded only' or 'no Republicans'. I have noticed these attitudes on occasion in the dating ads that I browse, but they seem rare when you filter for women over 35 or 40.
Searching in the rooms/shares area for the word "conservative" I got 5 hits today, but only 3 were in ref. to lifestyle and they were describing the occupants or what they hoped to find.
Searching on Republican only yielded one hit: A 23 yo. Republican female. Making it plural showed some negative attitudes but only 3 hits, one being a definate "no republicans" requirement.
When searching on liberal gave 13 hits. Was rare for them to exclude Republicans or conservatives blatantly, but there was a good bit of verbage about being into certain types of activism and a roommate needed to be into the same, otr they were "accepting of others" and buzzwords: not homophobic, (must enjoy) talks about unfair labor practices, etc.
A personal favorite here: We are looking for a housemate who is involved with social change, the environment, personal/psychological/spiritual growth and transformation, or other progressive/liberal/human values issues.
The current residents are active, friendly, quiet, mixed gender, socially conscious, and socially and politically liberal.
We do not have specific expectations of a housemate in terms of time or activities, but we want someone who values the connections and opportunities we can offer, and sees themselves as making a conscious and positive contribution to help heal the earth and the people in it (including themselves!).
I guess one could call that an activism sofa in the same vein as a casting couch? Almost sounds like the reverse of the last paragraph in the story with the folks seeking a roomate using their connections as a lure.
Back to my earlier post about this article, yes it does seem to be from the same start point as the Examiner article, but it finishes far ahead and it is examining a slightly different aspect of renting, i.e., it is for shared housing rather than apartments. Also, there were actual Craigslist posts to back up the theme of this articls. None of the key words used above returned anything in the apts/housing for rent when I first wrote about the Examiner article nor when I wrote this.
Agreed... good writer (Score:2)
jason
Re: (Score:1)
Frankly, when I first responded on Ezra'a site about the roomie story, all I could read was the first paragraph and it really sounded like that story that Fairbanks had written in The Examiner. I had a different attitude after reading the whole story and wrote about it accordingly.
Ezra accused me of accusing plaigarism, for some reason, and the closest thought in my head to that was "recycling" in the sense of Assistant Editor Fairba