“Village Voice” Blog Writes Even Worse Headlines About Bad Headlines Than We Do

Brian Raftery | April 20, 2007 1:46 am
pandabear.jpg

A quick recap: For the past few months (we think), one of the music bloggers over at the Village Voice–a NYC-based publication that specializes in coining zingity-zang catchphrases–has been occasionally dropping the term “assholator” (it’s a combination of “asshole” and “idolator,” FYI). We generally just ignore it, as it’s yet another whiffed attempt to further our meager little war-of-words, and because we ignore the VV music blog anyway. But today’s little missive doesn’t make any sense: Granted, we specialize in bad headlines–revel in them, in fact–but this one wouldn’t make it even on our most desperate days. Here’s why:

– There are three elements to the pun: The “4.20” bit, which is a riff on the old “4:20 = stoner time” gag; the “do you know where your kids are?” structure; and the fact that Panda Bear tickets go on sale today. You should never punnify more than two elements at a time, unless you’ve got something really yowza, joke-wise. – The “4.20” gag assumes that most readers will automatically make the connection (if it even exists) between Panda Bear and stoner music–a dodgy proposition, given how few people know about PB. – Even the best bad-pun headline must have a smidgen of logical flow. This one is a few degrees too obtuse–if we didn’t know that Panda Bear tickets were going on sale, or that he was even playing, we’d be wondering: Are people reporting massive disappearances of Panda Bear tickets? Were we given Panda Bear tickets and never informed of it, and now facing the prospect of already having lost said tickets? Is Panda Bear missing? – We don’t write about Panda Bear. Or concert-ticket on-sale dates. There are about a million blogs that do that already, and do it without complaining about having to work at 10 a.m.

It’s 4.20. Do You Know Where Your Panda Bear Tickets Are? [Villagevoice.com]