How to Write a Pretentious Article

Firstly, it is important to make sure everyone knows you’re a freelance journalist. To drive this point home you must arrange to meet up with your interviewee somewhere nondescript, preferably a greasy diner, so that you can casually describe the setting in a manner that sounds commonplace, when secretly you think it’s the most devastatingly cool thing you have ever done.   

Example of opening paragraph:

“As I sit across from him in this greasy-spoon breakfast joint in Mile-end, he takes a sip of coffee (his third cup) and takes a drag from a meticulously hand-rolled cigarette. There’s a non-smoking sign but no one seems to care. He’s wearing a stained grey t-shirt and a brown leather jacket. I ask him where he got the jacket. He says that he traded it with an old Hibachi chief back in ’77 for a Seiko wrist watch.”

A crucial element to your piece is how you treat the subject of narcotics. It’s preferable that you smoke drugs with your interviewee, thus proving to everyone how liberal you are, but making it seem that you don’t even think about how liberal you are because to you it’s second nature. Remember, you must refer to any marijuana cigarette as a “joint.”

Example:

“we smoked a joint and he reminisced about his days in Cambodia”

Or

“We smoked a joint and talked about Cambodia”

And even

“I smoke joints with people that have been to Cambodia/ are war photographers”

There are a few stock words that you may call upon. These include: quaint, surreal, transcends, embark (often followed by “upon a journey of…”) and my personal favourite, Quintessential. Feel free to use all of these words, sometimes in one sentence. Here is an example:

Tucked away under the awning of this quaint pirogue stand in a quintessential area of urban Prague, we embarked upon a journey of higher conversation, one that transcended generational boundaries and was surreal.

As exemplified above, a great word to fall back upon is “urban.” Similar to the letter “Q” -  which is unusable without its counterpart “U” -  “urban” must never stand alone. For example: Urban sexuality, or urban mystique, and why not, urban quintessence?  Throw urban onto anything and you will sound like a progressive bohemian literary mastermind.

A great way to make jokes is by encapsulating them with hyphens. The following is but one example of this mode of delivery:

With the Fijian tribesman all dressed up – or should I say, “dressed down” – in their traditional garbs, I suddenly felt smothered by my western attire. I discarded my jean jacket onto the red soil. It was so juxtaposed. Next came my Levis, then I rhythmically entered a new horizon.

Wherever you may be stationed, ensure that your reader knows you are one with the locals and probably earned a nick name like “el Diablo blanco” for surfing only the biggest waves. There is nothing less cool than a tourist. As a journalist you shouldn’t stick out, you should fit in.

It is very important that you constantly bring up the race, creed, and specific nomenclature associated with those around you. Rather than “I was surrounded by people” write, “I was surrounded by Himalayans.”  Himalayans are not white; they’re Asian or something and are from a really important place where spirituality exists.

Remember, as someone so acclimatized to every geographic location there is no need to explain to people the lingo you use. It’s the reader’s fault for not travelling as much as you. If they don’t know what Sri Lankan currency is called or what kind of soup you drink in Reykjavik, then that’s their loss.   

 If there’s any one thing you need to remember it’s this: You are the shit. Every word you write transcends surrealism and breaches in to another dimension. When you wake up after not brushing your teeth and you dislodge yellow crud from the back of your throat with an authoritative, open-mouthed hork –It’s not stomach bile and tartar, it’s a rolling fucking stone. Now get out there and write, you god damn genius.

                                                                                                                                                                         ~Rupert Common