The End of Minneapolis' City Pages

Allow me to tell you the tale of two *cough* "newspapers" from the 90's.

As a student at the U of MN Minneapolis campus there were two newspapers that were there to constantly remind us just how bad we were, how oppressive we were, how we owed other people money, and (not too shortly after the 90's) lectured white and males about being...well...whites and males.  The two newspapers were The Star Tribune and City Pages.

The Star Tribune was your typical baby boomer, large city new publication that subtly and not so subtly advocated socialism while faking the air of "journalism" the entire time.  The City Pages was the local "music and events" calendar, which also (oddly) insisted on forcing outright and obvious socialist politics and articles on their readers.  Most of us 20 somethings merely grabbed a copy of the City Pages to see what was going on at this nightclub or which jazz musician was playing at that night club, but only the devout proto-SJW Gen X "grunge" garbage (replete with pacifiers in their mouths) would read it for their "articles," thinking they were high end philosophers as their parents from the suburbs paid for their Work Avoidance "liberal arts degrees."

This presented an annoyance for those of us with real jobs and real degrees contributing real GDP to the economy.  City Pages hands down had the best and most comprehensive list of events going on in the city.  For that they were serving a need and providing value to the economy.  But (as is the case with nearly every leftist artist) they couldn't just be satisfied with providing that good and quality service.  Like Hollywood, the Walker Art Center, and every other "artist" out there, they just had to add politics.  And not just soft left politics.  Insulting politics demanding you pay more money and it was your fault for everything wrong in the world.

This thorn in the side of unrequested leftist politics being served with an events calendar was somewhat tempered with the advent of the internet.  City Pages made the successful jump from paper to digital, but you could go directly to their calendar and not see the latest oppressed minority or latest Che Guevara t-shirt wearing "activist" with their latest call for other people's hard-earned money.  But it still irked me that they we the only game in town when it came to finding events in the Twin Cities.  Worse, as SJWism and the 00's rolled around, the events they listed started to reflect their politics, relegating nearly all the events on the City Pages to 4 main leftist categories.

Lousy art shows.
Lousy theater.
Lousy bands.
Lousy speeches/lectures.

Many-a-time I would hit up the City Pages, thinking I'd find something interesting, talented, and of genuine intellectual interest, but it was just ads for the Twin Cities' finest leftist artists using (inferior) art as a mask to promote their leftist religion.  Poetry slams by (guess what!) leftist college poets.  Art shows at (guess what) the leftist Walker Art Center.  "Hey that band looks interesting, let's check them out!"  Guess what!  A sermon and lecture in between each song about the evils of Republicans.

It was bad enough a good conversation with friends in the Perkins of suburbia was more enjoyable, entertaining, and intelligent.

But there was good news on the horizon and it would only be an accidental search on Google that made me realize the end of The City Pages was already here or near.  For one night, completely bored and nothing to do at home, I decided I would look up and see what was going on in Minneapolis that night.  I had already searched Meetup.com, which i had been using as a daytime replacement for City Pages, but instead of going to City Pages, I remembered Google would also consolidate flights and hotel prices in case you wanted to just quickly peruse what the airlines were offering.  And shimmy shammy, wammy bammy, with the hoity toity and the oopdy loopdy, guess what.

Google does the same thing for Minneapolis events.

I tried doing the same with Chicago Events, because like Minneapolis has the City Pages, Chicago has it's own leftist rag called "The Chicago Reader." But somebody at the Chicago Reader must have had some pull because Google does not list events for that city.  Same with LA and New York.  But for Milwaukee, Denver, or any other non-major city, it looks like the internet in the form of Google and Meetup.com has now completely obsoleted the need for these communist-propagandist papers...that just so happen to have events calendar attached to them.  

As with any shrinking and obsolete industry, consolidation is the name of the game.  In 2015 The Star Tribune bought out City Pages, and now the two are one and the same "big conglomerate evil corporation" ironically writing leftist slop for faux-intellectual SWPL humanities majors to masturbate to as they sip $5 espressos and opine entirely new theories as to why they're entitled to other people's money.  And like nearly every other newspaper (paper or digital or otherwise) their employees are relegated to the incomes of part time bloggers...or perhaps volunteerists who are paid nothing like the Huffington Post.  Worse, they are relegated to fewer readers, fewer advertising dollars, and need a larger parent company to float them financially because...well, why would hard working people visit their site to be insulted when there are cheaper, freer, and politics-free alternatives via Meetup.com and simple Google searches?

It was fun City Pages.  I'm sure you guys with the thousands of articles claiming entitlement to other people's money for "reasons" since the 70's has really solved poverty, racial relations, closed wage gaps, and done the world and world of good.  And who knows!?  With your "backpages" you may have even helped spread the good word of STD's.  But in the end, your politics provided society no value, and all you were were parasitic tag-alongs to a damn events calendar.

Enjoy the decline.