Is "Underground News Team" An Oxymoron?

The slick marketing geniuses at Yahoo! have decided to hip their news up and get a little street cred. Try, at least. Underground is a news subsection of the Yahoo! realm where "a handful of media professionals who comb the subcultures of America to bring you untold stories of shock and awe". Being part of the ridiculous Yahoo! News Underground team requires you to be so hip for your whiteness that it obscures the air of trying too hard. Just read the info about them and the image of 40 year olds wearing track suit jackets who look like three stints in rehab should come to mind.

But what is really obnoxious is how awfully pedestrian and not cool their underground is. What drew my attention to them was their focus on the Krumping dance craze that's sweeping the streets...as of three years ago. The years old documentary Rize aptly covered the spastic dancing of LA's hood and pissed off my girlfriend at the time for being boring. I guess the world is tragically unaware of the midget sized Kiss cover band, the gay rodeo, and the all-female Iron Maiden tribute band, but that's the cutting edge stuff that's also circa 2004 which needs to be brought out of the underground.

Corporations ALWAYS fuck up trying to be cool, and this interweb venture is no different. If you really want to be on the bleeding edge of underground goings-on, look at Flavorpill. There, I just saved you life and made you hipper in the process.