Video Podcast: TheBurg

December 28, 2006 1:39 PM

TheBurg is an internet TV show set in Williamsburg and features hipsters doing what hipsters in Williamsburg do. Pretty funny stuff! Comes out once a month.
posted by k8t (78 comments total)

eaaaaaaaaaauuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrghhhhh
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 1:51 PM on December 28, 2006

havent seen it, is it a series or ??? dunno
posted by Jowito at 1:56 PM on December 28, 2006

I am having strange feelings right now
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 1:58 PM on December 28, 2006

This thread is going to get ugly. My knee always acts up when things are going to get ugly.

Here, I'll go first. Hipsters are just people who have more fun than you, or money than you, or cooler clothes or something.

Everyone's a hipster to somebody!
posted by hermitosis at 2:01 PM on December 28, 2006

If this show is any indication of what hipsters are like, especially within 100 miles of my home, I will buy weapons soon.
posted by nj_subgenius at 2:02 PM on December 28, 2006

I see douchebags just about every time I leave the house. I don't need to look for them on the Internet.
posted by Mayor Curley at 2:03 PM on December 28, 2006

Hmmm, so it's just 'Friends' (note the opening credits sequence), but set on the other side of the East River?

If anyone's interested in seeing this demo/lifestyle taken to task properly, get thee to a 'Nathan Barley' torrent...
posted by crank at 2:04 PM on December 28, 2006

This show takes place 0 miles from my home, and I think that's what makes me angry. Is this what people in this area are like? Maybe. Is this what people who live outside of this area think people who live in this area are like? Maybe, also. Is this now what people who apparently live in this area think they should be like? Now that's terrible.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 2:05 PM on December 28, 2006

Also, I'm not convinced *at all* that 90% of the comments from the first episode aren't plants. But I'm just another paranoid, self-hating hipster, because I live in the- oh fuck it.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 2:07 PM on December 28, 2006

Watched a bit of it; not bad, though the camera work suffers in comparison to shows with larger sets. There are way too many closeup headshots; it feels a little claustrophobic.
posted by verb at 2:09 PM on December 28, 2006

Anybody I speak to who refers to Williamsburg by a nickname or silly abbreviation, whether in print or out loud, goes immediately on my danger list.

Actually that goes for any city or neighborhood. "Chi-Town", "La-La Land", etc.
posted by hermitosis at 2:11 PM on December 28, 2006

What the mayor said, but then again what Crank said.

Peace and Fucking, treacle slit!
posted by Divine_Wino at 2:12 PM on December 28, 2006

Jed and Xander struggle with how to kick out their roommate and maintain their cred; Courtney tries to decide between a life of debt or a really cool shirt.

OMGOL I CAN TOTALLY RELATE
posted by cmonkey at 2:13 PM on December 28, 2006

what about shaky town , or flag town, or needle town, what about nash-vegas?
posted by nola at 2:16 PM on December 28, 2006

A hipster once slept with a girl I liked.
posted by srboisvert at 2:20 PM on December 28, 2006

It wasn't nearly as bad as a colonoscopy.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:20 PM on December 28, 2006

Wow. I watched 4 mins or so of the latest and it was dreadful. Do people really talk about how good times were back when "Kurt" was still around? Eesh.
posted by dobbs at 2:21 PM on December 28, 2006

Things like this make me glad that the city I live in will never be "cool." Well, it'll always be fonz cool.
posted by drezdn at 2:21 PM on December 28, 2006

This would have been cooler if it was set in Colonial Williamsburg.
posted by InfidelZombie at 2:22 PM on December 28, 2006 [3 favorites]

Courtney tries to decide between a life of debt or a really cool shirt.

Wait till she finds out she can have both!
posted by escabeche at 2:23 PM on December 28, 2006

"hipster" came and went so fast i never even got invited to the party.
posted by nola at 2:25 PM on December 28, 2006

head to wicker park and you'll make last call.
posted by phaedon at 2:27 PM on December 28, 2006

Hunh. I was hoping this would be about Williamsburg VIRGINIA. Love to watch 'em making bricks the olde fashionedey way!
posted by DenOfSizer at 2:29 PM on December 28, 2006

what should i order when i get there?
posted by nola at 2:29 PM on December 28, 2006

what should i order when i get there?

Can of PBR, obviously.
posted by bdk3clash at 2:34 PM on December 28, 2006

PBR and jaeger bombs.
posted by phaedon at 2:35 PM on December 28, 2006

This would have been cooler if it was set in Colonial Williamsburg.
posted by InfidelZombie at 5:22 PM EST on December 28

Wait this isn't set in Colonial Williamsburg? I seriously thought that it was. I don't have a shockwave player so I couldn't watch it, but I thought that it sounded like a great idea. A bunch of cool looking people hanging out in Colonial Williamsburg. I was surprised people were hating. That would be an awesome show. "Hey what's going on?" "Nothing, this town is so lame." "I know." *looks at person dressed as a minuteman* "Hey loser, its 2006! Quit attempting to recreate the past!" "God this sucks. Lets go watch them make candles" "Totally".

I live in South Carolina. What are 'hipsters'?
posted by ND¢ at 2:36 PM on December 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

no shit? hell the boys at jim's inn ain't going to believe me when i tell 'em how hipster they been all these years. tell me, is it cool to drink coors light yet?

on preview what that old boy NDcents said.
posted by nola at 2:37 PM on December 28, 2006

speaking of PBR, Karl Strauss has passed. (better chicago trib write-up, but requires reg.)
posted by phaedon at 2:38 PM on December 28, 2006

third or fourth or whatever on being sad this wasn't in colonial Williamsburg. I was all a-quiver with curiosity - was it some educational thing, set in colonial times? Was it like a behind-the-scenes show set amongst the actors and craftsmen who work there now? Some mix of the two? All manner of neat possibilities there.
posted by freebird at 2:42 PM on December 28, 2006

well i just learned a fucking new word: trustafarian.
i can now rest in peace.
posted by phaedon at 2:44 PM on December 28, 2006

...features hipsters doing what hipsters in Williamsburg do.

episode 101: CRED
episode 102: MYSPACE
episode 103: BAR
episode 104: PROJECT
episode 105: Fair Trade
episode 106: CHEMISTRY
episode 107: Training
episode 108: Single
Episode 109: 90’s

Episode 110: Cokedick
Episode 111: NA Meetings
Episode 112: New Year's relapse
Episode 113: Cokedick (again, argh!)
Episode 114: Pee burn
Episode 115: Argument with Dad over AmEx bill
Episdoe 116: Move into more expensive, cooler apartment closer to the L Train
Episode 117: Yell at Dad to shut the fuck up and pay the rent over the phone after drinking in Greenpoint Tavern all afternoon
Episode 118: Electro party
Episode 119: Coke dick
Episode 120: I'm going back to art school next semester (no, seriously)
Season finale: Coke dick
posted by The Straightener at 2:48 PM on December 28, 2006 [7 favorites]

Aside from the obvious problems, the writing is just shitty. I stop there.
posted by basicchannel at 2:50 PM on December 28, 2006

Not very funny, which is sad because I imagine there could be a very funny little show with this premise, sending up all the hipster foibles and affectations (Goths seem to be especially prone to this amusing self-criticism). But this was unwatchable. Anyway, the only cool internet tv show would have to be set in Bushwick, because, Billburg is soooo played out.
posted by Falconetti at 2:52 PM on December 28, 2006

That said, the music is neato. I like this Bravo Silva, stomach-turning bio notwithstanding.
posted by basicchannel at 2:52 PM on December 28, 2006

Earlier this year, I attended an interview for a New Media Producer position with a medium-size firm in NYC. Towards the end, the two hipster morons who were conducting the interview informed me that the company was going to relocate to DUMBO later this year, and wasn't that just "neato". Without hesitation, I congratulated them on the notion that they would all have a much shorter commute to work. Irony was not within their grasp.
posted by dbiedny at 2:53 PM on December 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

Well, it isn't pee-your-pants-funny, but it is more interesting than other internet TV that I can find...

the myspace episode is okay...
posted by k8t at 2:54 PM on December 28, 2006

hipsters? dorks, more like it.
posted by dydecker at 2:54 PM on December 28, 2006

what should i order when i get there?

[rolls eyes condescendingly] You mean you don't know?
posted by bdk3clash at 2:54 PM on December 28, 2006

I watched two episodes (I was bored at work). One and Seven. There were one or two funny moments, but other than that, it just wasn't doing it for me.
posted by drezdn at 2:55 PM on December 28, 2006

Is that a call-out, dbiedny? Neato is a perfectly cromulent word.

:(
posted by basicchannel at 3:02 PM on December 28, 2006

I want the kids from Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia (a TRULY righteous show) to show up with aluminum baseball bats and straighten these smug fucks right out.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 3:07 PM on December 28, 2006

Can of PBR, obviously.

what's up with that, anyway? ... where i live, it's just another brand of beer ... once in awhile, i drink it myself and nobody ever calls me a hipster for it ... it's one of those things factory rats like me drink
posted by pyramid termite at 3:10 PM on December 28, 2006

The over-Bukowski'd hipster set has embraced the PBR along with their love of "dive bars"

These are two things I can totally get behind, but they slum like tourists and thats annoying.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 3:17 PM on December 28, 2006

I see douchebags just about every time I leave the house.

Man. Them is some dirty vaginas out there.
posted by tkchrist at 3:21 PM on December 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

I went to college in Williamsburg VA and the hipsters there were pretty unsufferable, too. I bet more than a handful of them live in Brooklyn now.

There is, however, a certain charm in seeing people dressed in colonial garb shopping at Food Lion and pumping gas.
posted by juliplease at 3:21 PM on December 28, 2006

*shoots monitor*

*posts this comment via ESP*
posted by jonmc at 3:25 PM on December 28, 2006

but how do you really feel jon?
posted by nola at 3:30 PM on December 28, 2006

Gah. I'm sitting in Williamsburg right now.... there's so much to make fun of here.... and yet this video is painfully dull....

(I've been here since 1989 (with a brief hiatus) and I love it. I don't see these hipsters but I guess I also don't hang out in their areas. There are still a lot of artists on the periphery, and of course there's Bushwick....

(Has there been a W'burg MeFi meetup?)
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 3:36 PM on December 28, 2006

Aw, c'mon guys. Just because it's a show about hipsters doesn't mean that the show doesn't have a sufficient amount of deprecating humor towards its own kind. If anything, it felt like a deliberate parody at times ("C'mon guys, let's name the show 'TheBurg'! How stupid and funny is that, hyuk hyuk").

Then again, I stopped watching after a few minutes -- the music is okay, but the writing sucked.
posted by suedehead at 3:37 PM on December 28, 2006

The cool thing about this show is how saleable it is. It reminds me of Club Med commericials. It's like the Midwestern teens who obsess over Sex in the City. I bet the real product here is NYC itself. There's something about NYC that just overflows with novelty. But living in a theme park for rich white people is a new fantasy, isn't it? Previously the appeal of the city was luxury and sophistication -- this is neither.
posted by nixerman at 3:41 PM on December 28, 2006

White people in Brooklyn who don't live in Park Slope or Brooklyn Hgts.?? Who knew?

And to paraphrase Lou Grant: I don't even like saying "hipster".
posted by wfc123 at 3:57 PM on December 28, 2006

suedehead: "Aw, c'mon guys. Just because it's a show about hipsters doesn't mean that the show doesn't have a sufficient amount of deprecating humor towards its own kind. "

American? Check.
Nym that refers to the seventies British pulp novels of Richard Allen? Check.

Hmmmm.

People, I think we've got one over here! Get the torches, quick!
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:59 PM on December 28, 2006

hermitosis: "Hipsters are just people who have more fun than you, or money than you, or cooler clothes or something. "

Completely wrong.

No, they don't have more fun, and their clothes suck.

I hate hipsters because they are much younger than I am and have far more casual sex than I do.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:07 PM on December 28, 2006

These people come off as unlikeable without actually doing anything malicious.

That takes some doin.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 4:08 PM on December 28, 2006

Here is an example of what is wrong with bad sitcoms.

"It's Karmal"
"karmal?" "what goes around comes around... the Indians cal it karmal."
"Don't you mean karma?"
"Yeah"
"Because they mean totally different things."

The bad sitcom is so desperate that the viewer not miss even the lamest joke that it will keep pointing out the joke over and over again like its performing CPR on a corpse.

Which reminds me it was kind of funny when they actually did want to see a dead body.
posted by I Foody at 4:48 PM on December 28, 2006

Do I have to have myspace hair and listen to 'indie' art rock bands to get the jokes in this? Cuz I've been to those parties. They are rather lame. It's almost as bad as going to a high school goth party. It's like they are trying really hard not to take themselves or life seriously, but, in trying to hard, they end up being serious, which removes any sense of irony or, well, humor from them. These are not the cool kids. These are the kids who are 'with it' even though they have no idea what 'it' is.

And they're also the reason why PBR went from $1 a can to $3 a can at my former punk bar. Of course, it was funny to me since I knew the owner and she loved charging people more money for shitty beer. It also meant more Yeungling for me.
posted by daq at 4:52 PM on December 28, 2006

I have to maintain my loyalty to The Williamsburgers, as I was actually in the pilot... (scroll down to party extras).

If you ever manage to see it, I am the guy in the recliner, smoking the bong.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:29 PM on December 28, 2006

yeah , i scrolled down but i didn't see meatbomb.
posted by nola at 5:56 PM on December 28, 2006

Fuck the haters. I found this to be pretty damn funny for free web tv. I'm going to sit here and imagine all of you dressing and talking like this.

Whoa! Is that one guy related to Chris Elliot?
posted by ColdChef at 6:04 PM on December 28, 2006

“The thing about Williamsburg,” said Kelli Giddish, a blond aspiring actress who plays a blond aspiring actress on the show, “is all the ugly people are trying to look pretty and all the pretty people are trying to look ugly.” She paused to let the observation sink in, then pulled a faded white satin nightshirt over her starlet-thin frame, belted it up tight with an oversized tan suede sash, topped it off with a white crocheted shawl and pronounced the new look “Granny Chic.” Several of her co-stars applauded.

*
posted by RJ Reynolds at 6:05 PM on December 28, 2006

I'd probably like it more if those young people didn't swear so much.
posted by ColdChef at 6:08 PM on December 28, 2006

From the article RJ linked: It’s like Rent, only instead of AIDS, some of them have trust funds.

Awesome.
posted by ColdChef at 6:10 PM on December 28, 2006

As much as I dislike hipsters, some of the dialogue sounds like it was written by 40-something marketing execs who think they know how the "kids" are talking.

For me, the funniest part was simply imagining that this turned out to be jonmc's absolute favorite show ever, and he went and exchanged all his flannel for a bunch of ironic faux-vintage "Virginia is for Lovers" t-shirts and quit his job to follow Clap Your Hands Say Yeah around the country.
posted by jalexei at 6:17 PM on December 28, 2006

I wish I could deride this in a hipsterlike fashion, but it would be too ironic in the non-hip-ironic ironic way.
posted by tehloki at 6:36 PM on December 28, 2006

Most of the cast lives in Manhattan. (Follow the irony snake as it swallows its tail.)

- also from the RJ article
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 7:06 PM on December 28, 2006

*watches the first 5 or so minutes*

these are hipsters? ... um, what's hip about them? ... um ... um ... holy fuck, i'm nearly 50 years old and i think i've just been finally faced with the day where i just don't get it

oh, but spring is cute ... (sigh of relief) ... i'm not THAT dead, yet
posted by pyramid termite at 7:10 PM on December 28, 2006

This would have been cooler if it was set in Colonial Williamsburg.

Thats what I thought this post was all about.

Episode 4: Redcoats are all the rage, bifocals are out, and Courtney tearfully admits her "vanity cane" is no vanity at all after she tells Greg its from childhood polio.
posted by damn dirty ape at 7:13 PM on December 28, 2006

what about shaky town , or flag town

Henceforth reserved for songs about truckers and CB radios.
posted by evilcolonel at 7:23 PM on December 28, 2006

dobbs: if u can get past the first 4 minutes which dare to mention kurt...well the last part really comes together. I actually laughed.
posted by uni verse at 8:26 PM on December 28, 2006

Weird brain-fart from me. I thought everybody following the link was doing the same thing I was and checking out the oldest show from the archives, which has the stuff everybody was snarking about, so I had the impression we were using the same instincts I used, checking out the oldest stuff first. Then, after a few minutes, I realized the oldest stuff is also the stuff at the top of the page, and I lost all respect for everybody using my instincts. Now I'm just disappointed in you all.
posted by cgc373 at 8:30 PM on December 28, 2006

For everyone thrown off by the early episodes, watch E107. It's quite clever and you don't have to know the characters to appreciate it. That said, I like it...and I'm now a 27 year old shut in working 60 hour weeks for "The Man". I haven't been to a bar or seen an indie show in 2 years. It reminds me of myself when I was aged about 20-24. Sure, the idea is to commodify and render a pre-fab nostalgic notion of self that you're too lazy create on your own, but that's show biz y'all.
Most of the stereotypic quirks are spot on.

In short, suck it haters.
They're clever and the soap opera blond is hot.
posted by rhizome23 at 8:43 PM on December 28, 2006

God. I'm a moron.

Watch Episode 104.
posted by rhizome23 at 8:46 PM on December 28, 2006

I've just finished watching all of the episodes. The more I watched it, the less I liked it. Eh. I've seen worse, I guess.
posted by ColdChef at 9:45 PM on December 28, 2006

If this is what I have to look forward to, I'm moving back in with my parents.
posted by thecaddy at 11:46 PM on December 28, 2006

My mother lived in Williamsburg in the 60s when it was all orthodox Jewish, black, and Latino. The place was a huge slum, and several of her school mates carried kitchen knives in their purses. She is still amazed that anyone would voluntarily live there.
posted by 1adam12 at 1:03 AM on December 29, 2006

My mother lived in Williamsburg in the 60s when it was all orthodox Jewish, black, and Latino.

I recall visiting with a needle exchange programme towards the end of the eighties. I think the jews had mostly gone by that point.

While it probably wasn't like this everywhere, most of the streets that we visited appeared to be given over to huge open air drug markets with everyone involved in the trade in one way or another.

The idea of it being a resort for hipsters seemed inconceivable. In those days, even the undercover cops travelled in fours and made no real attempt to conceal the firearms that they were packing.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:20 AM on December 29, 2006

I think the jews had mostly gone by that point.

There's actually more than one Williamsburg, still.

There's the area by Bedford and the waterfront, which is ridiculously expensive and by the L, and there's the area over by Broadway and the JMZ, at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge and onward - south (the heavily Jewish area), and into Bushwick (the more industrial and less ritzy East Williamsburg).
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 8:02 AM on December 29, 2006