How to Be a Writer: Anatomy of the Perfect Trend Piece

The most emailed article in The New York Times today is, as usual, a trend piece, which is an article about an item, theme, or behavior that is newly popular.  Because this article is quite possibly the perfection of the “trend piece” form, I would like to take the opportunity to explain to you how to be a journalist, using it as my guiding light.

First, you need a trend.  The trend is often something that people have done since literally before the species Homo sapiens got into the game, such as “communicating sexual desire.”  In this case: hugs.

Girls embracing girls, girls embracing boys, boys embracing each other.

And then you need a demographic.  Who is doing the trend?  The answer here is almost always “teenagers,” though occasionally it is “thirtysomething single women.”

The hug has become the favorite social greeting when teenagers meet or part these days.  Teachers joke about “one hour” and “six hour” hugs, saying that students hug one another all day as if they were separated for the entire summer.

But how did the trend start?  Who is responsible?  

Maybe…

The trend is from TV characters!  

Hugging appears to be a grass-roots phenomenon and not an imitation of a character or custom on TV or in movies.

Nope!  Teenagers do not watch TV anymore, only YouTubes and sex camera pictures on their telephones.

The trend is from Society!

Amy L. Best, a sociologist at George Mason University, said the teenage embrace is more a reflection of the overall evolution of the American greeting, which has become less formal since the 1970s. “Without question, the boundaries of touch have changed in American culture,” she said. “We display bodies more readily, there are fewer rules governing body touch and a lot more permissible access to other people’s bodies.”

That sounds like a complicated explanation!  It would be best if we did not examine this any further.

The trend is from “bromance”!

Experts say that over the last generation, boys have become more comfortable expressing emotion, as embodied by the MTV show “Bromance,” which is now a widely used term for affection between straight male friends.

Writer people are using that word a lot and also, that movie!  But surely there’s a better culprit…

The trend is from black people!

But some sociologists pointed out that African-American boys and men have been hugging as part of their greeting for decades, using the word “dap” to describe a ritual involving handshakes, slaps on the shoulders and, more recently, a hug, also sometimes called the gangsta hug among urban youth.

Like that rapping music everyone is talking about now!  No, though – I think the real cause has been obvious all along…

The trend is from The Face Book!  Of course!

“Maybe it’s because all these kids do is text and go on Facebook so they don’t even have human contact anymore,” said Dona Eichner, the mother of freshman and junior girls at the high school in Montvale.

The trend is solved!  But you need two more important elements in your article.  First, what do parents think about all this?

“No hi, no smile, no wave, no high-five — just the hug. Witnessing this interaction always makes me feel like I am a tourist in a country where I do not know the customs and cannot speak the language.”

[Dona Eichner] added: “I hug people I’m close to. But now you’re hugging people you don’t even know. Hugging used to mean something.”

The parents do not understand!  Therefore, while it seems harmless, it is probably bad.  It is probably being done by other people’s bad children!  So you must be an objective reporter.  You must tell us about the dark side of hugging:

A measure of how rapidly the ritual is spreading is that some students complain of peer pressure to hug to fit in. And schools from Hillsdale, N.J., to Bend, Ore., wary in a litigious era about sexual harassment or improper touching — or citing hallway clogging and late arrivals to class — have banned hugging or imposed a three-second rule.

Ah ha!  It is a sex thing!  Like how teenagers do not kiss each other except on the genitals or on the My Space.

If you throw in a line like “call it ‘Generation H’!” (it’s in the video), you’re just doing your trend reporter job extra well.

Here’s the article.