The blogs kissed!

Toto, I don’t think we’re in Morningside Heights anymore

That is to say, the cutest long-distance relationship in Manhattan came to fruition when I went to an NYU Local meeting. After my Friday afternoon class ended, I jumped on the downtown 1 train to Christopher Street and felt like I was in uncharted territory, because I always get lost around that area no matter how many times I go to that exact station (disclaimer: not very many times, probably). I walked past West 4 Tattoo; why is there such a huge crowd around it? Do people just stand in line in front of the shop? Very cool. Very “downtown.” So many chic restaurants, bars, and cafés! Meanwhile, uptown, we just get three Joe Coffees, 1020, and two bars that fight over senior night.

Anyway, I made it to Bobst Library, where Local holds their meetings. It was super cool! There was a sound installation at sunset! Walking past Washington Square Park gave me flashbacks to freshman year when I hung around Lipton Hall a lot. People downtown are so hot and look so alive! At one point, I saw two women on a street corner; one of them barked (yes, literally barked like a dog) at the other, and the latter burped back in response. Is this downtown culture? I’m into it.

NYU Local was very sweet and very welcoming. I met Izzie, their EIC and my longtime Twitter friend, for the first time in person. They gave me Goldfish! Are bags of Goldfish their green grapes? I love it. I wore my Bwog sweatshirt just in case anyone was confused. We sat in a circle on nice black couches in the Bobst lobby. At Bwog meetings, we fight over the few one-person couches in Lerner 510, but Local meetings are more democratic in this way. There were a few new staffers (cute!), so I wasn’t the only newcomer.

Alma Bwogger & the Local EICs!

Bwog and Local, while longtime blog lovers, are organized a bit differently. Bwog is hosted on a janky WordPress site that notoriously hasn’t worked properly since 2016. Local switched over to Medium a long time ago. At Bwog, we have Deputy Editors, Daily Editors, an Events Editor, Arts Editor, Social Media Editor, etc., and the editorial board. Local has two EICs, a City Editor, On Campus Editor, Entertainment Editor, Breaking News Editor, and Social Editor.

Because of this sort of division of editorial positions, at Local, it seems like all posts are assigned an editor, and writers submit their posts to their assigned editors the night before the post is due to go up. At Bwog, the posts are uploaded on WordPress and theoretically edited by the Daily Editor before it is scheduled, except the scheduler doesn’t work right now and posts are often submited the day of. They’re sometimes pitched the day of. (Fun Bwog trivia that no one asked for: in its early stages, the Daily Editors apparently wrote all/most of the posts that went up on their days.)

The way we do pitches is also different. At a typical Bwog meeting, we spend the first half-hour going over announcements, arts, events, science, and sports. At Local, this is covered a lot more briefly and the staffers go around a circle and submit two or so pitches. People who don’t have two pitches are assigned something that needs to be covered. There is somehow a lot more side conversation at a Local meeting (politics! Scooby Doo! mole furries!) but everything still gets done efficiently. Maybe I feel this way because I tried to stay quiet for the most part at this Local meeting, whereas at a Bwog meeting I’m usually the one derailing the conversation.

Anyway I love our blog love and I love NYU Local!!! Not sure how else to end this article. Make the blogs kiss!!

make the blogs kiss via Youngweon Lee