The Believer #11-12 (March-April 2004)

The printed equivalent of NPR, The Believer both fascinates and infuriates me.

Fascinates, because I'm genuinely interested in its editorial focus, which combines a relatively savvy cultural sensibility with the depth and breadth to encompass the full scope of a variety of topics, from films to art to history, products, and even politics.

Infuriates, because it's so completely self-satisfied, the knowing smirk bleeds through practically every line, and I want to wipe it clean with a kick in the neck.

Its writers, and core audience, are late 20s to early 40s, all grasping at a level of educated hipness that's elusively nonexistent. Reading The Believer is like going to a grad school party where the alcohol and drugs aren't used to promote wanton fucking and vomiting, but rather to open up a positive space for soft, intense conversations, while ambient world beats play in the background underscored by expensive patchouli incense.

The Believer appeals to that part of me that wants to be in on whatever's one year from breaking into the mainstream. And to a large degree, it succeeds, while maintaining a totally insufferable, in-your-face poseur literality that's just a complete turnoff.

I'd been reading The Believer with the same ambivalent mixture of admiration and dismissiveness since it debuted, but my buttons really started getting pushed with Issue Eleven, which featured an article purporting to codify the theory of "So Bad It's Good" (SOBIG). The author posited the idea that some low-quality entertainments have high entertainment value because of their low quality. That's sort of a "Well, duh" idea, but there's no harm in trying to get to the bottom of it.

The author uses as his primary example The Apple, as he'd first discovered it at a recent Los Angeles art-house screening. Now, there's nothing wrong with stumbling upon The Apple this late in the game. But their posture of "discovering" it shows they're perhaps not as ahead of the game as they'd like to think. This gets into a fundamental problem with being "ahead of the curve"—that is, if you're too far ahead, you have trouble connecting with an audience, whereas if you're slightly ahead, you can usually lead the masses your way. The Believer, like NPR, breaks no new ground, but rather invites you along to explore its discoveries. So for its audience, this magazine is probably amazingly comforting and exciting, yet for those who operate ahead of its game, it feels quite unjustifiably self-satisfied.

Each issue I've read of The Believer contained several stories of marginal interest, and a few of slightly better than marginal value. As for the issue at hand …

An article that vaguely attempts to compare Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago to the Iraq war, but utterly fails to achieve any real sense or meaning, merely drowning in its sub-Academic pretensions. A couple of endless political stories dissect the Democratic primaries and Howard Dean's implosion, as if anyone with any sense really thought he was a serious contender. A Dave Eggers story about Nigerian refugees is solidly poignant and well-written, yet seems to think it is more poignant than it is. Meanwhile, an interview with documentarian Errol Morris seems designed to prove the vast and preening intelligence of its author; it starts out interesting and degenerates into a discussion of some deeply obscure novel.

Loud Bassoon readers might enjoy that The Believer does "off-beat" reviews somewhat like we do. Unfortunately these tend to get lost in their intellectual pretensions and or smug tonality. The one about the niche lighting store is genuinely interesting, mainly because it's concise and to the point, and for some reason I find the topic strangely fascinating. The quasi-review of the Galápagos Tortoise is rather cutesy in its first-person narrative, but has enough meaty facts to make it worthwhile (like how the Galápagos Tortoise can survive floating on the open ocean for more than a year … a perfect bit of knowledge to entertain your weekly chess club).

A motel review was utterly senseless and lazy, while a review of two children was surprisingly sweet and playful, if undeniably self-satisfied. The review of an "anti-fatigue mat" was so obscure that I learned far less about the product than about the writer's desperate need to seem poetic.

The Believer also appears to offer a monthly "Schema"—an elaborate chart of various film-related themes, this one about movie presidents. Completely without merit, unless you enjoy eyeball ache. And author Nick Hornby gets to spout off about the books he buys and reads. If we had Nick Hornby, we'd make him stop coasting on book and CD recommendations and devote his time to the truly important act of reviewing vitamins.

The most unusual and potentially exciting article is an ongoing sex column by a Croatian woman, but in keeping with the rest of the magazine, it's too intellectual and wordy to be actually sexy.

Returning to the NPR comparison, the thing I think bothers me the most about The Believer is that it offers the illusion of a well-rounded intellectual experience: information, analysis, and "whimsy." However, like "All Things Considered" (which does not, incidentally, consider "all" things, nor even "most" things, but rather "pretty much always the same" things), it's a worldview with a limited scope and an already converted audience. Though I appreciate the attempt to bridge the gap between willful randomness and the formatted social responsibility of NPR, I end up feeling hollow, like leaving that aforementioned grad school party and realizing I didn't particularly enjoy anyone I just met, and just want to return home to watch Raw Meat.

By the time I finish reading The Believer, I am exhausted and slightly demoralized. I can appreciate its finer points, of which there are many, and yet I find it way too smug to tolerate on a continuing basis. And, like its wealthier, smarter uncle, The New Yorker, The Believer is simply too much of a time investment to justify itself.

Review by Crimedog