An ideal listicle touches on matters of objective taste in an entertaining but also informative way, using credible evidence to back up an opinion. GQ's newest list of the "40 Worst-Dressed Cities in America" ignores this tenet and eschews photos of normal people dressing poorly for stills from movies, popular culture, and football stadiums. more ›

Apparently "66% of Twitter users won't give an actual city as their location," so instead they use city nicknames, and according to majority rules, New York City is officially known as "Gotham" in the Twitterverse. There has always been some debate over whether Batman's Gotham City is actually New York City, with Chicago often trying to claim it for their own. Back in 2008 there was talk of New York City officially adopting Gotham City as its nickname, with Hiram Monserrate saying, “I see that as a marketing tool, ‘Come visit the real Gotham City." more ›

A shaving gel company has released a list of what they claim to be the top 50 U.S. cities poised for greatness. To get to the results they examined five key areas of greatness: sports, art, music, culture and cosmopolitan factors (like LEED certifications and population growth). New York City isn't even in the Top Ten! We were totally robbed in this fake marketing campaign study, but we did come in at #11, so that's something. However, we are behind Salt Lake City, Utah—which is something else. more ›

Oh sure, label us binge drinkers, but don't put us in the fun top 40 drunkest cities list? Something stinks, and it's not this Four Loko. Anyway, the Daily Beast ranked cities on how drunk they get, saying, "New Year’s Eve revelry serves as a reminder that the rules of moderation sometimes go out the window. The question we have: Which places throw out those rules too often?" The #1 city is Milwaukee, WI—where the average person 12.76 alcoholic beverages a month. A month! Oh c'mon, we know people (not us) who drink that much in one night. Maybe New York was taken out of the running because we're too good at drinking too much? more ›

Last month Forbes published a story ranking NYC as the 8th most-stressed city in America, behind Dallas (#7), Tampa (#4), and Las Vegas (#1). Now along comes Portfolio.com with a study that lists NYC as the 6th most-stressed, bested by Detroit (#1), L.A. (#2), Cleveland (#3), and Riverside, California (#4). (What's wrong with sunny Riverside? They've got a 14.4% unemployment rate, and 10% living below the poverty line.) Anyway, these divergent stress stories are starting stress us out. Is the media just churning out overly-simplistic trend pieces with no verifiable basis in reality? Or are we just a bunch of cynical, semi-stressed out New Yorkers over here? We'd love to hear what those stress-baskets in St. Louis (#5?!) have to say. more ›

If we had any damn time and weren't so completely frazzled we'd write a long monograph debunking this Forbes ranking of America's most stressful cities. NYC only comes in at #8! Now, it's true that NYC-based media gives us a big edge in dramatizing our stress to the world, but that doesn't mean the stress isn't real. And to rank our stress level lower than such cities as Dallas (#7) and Tampa (#4!!!) makes us want to hurl our scalding hot latte in the face of whichever Forbes intern was assigned to research this story. Guess which city is supposedly the most stressed? more ›

Breaking news: According to a Pew Research Center survey, young people want to live in big cities like New York (or Los Angeles)! As for everyone else, NYC doesn't rank as high. The NY Times explains a Big Apple yearning is more likely "if [respondents] already live in a city, in the East, are black, college educated, make more than $100,000, have never been married, have no children, are liberal and don’t regularly attend religious services." Also, those 18-29 looking for a "faster lifestyle" prefer NYC. However, the city most of the survey's respondents like? Denver. Pew Research's Rick Morin said, "It's a city that ranks high on most of the lists. It's a new city, a growing city, a younger city on what most people would perceive as the doorstep of God's country — the Rocky Mountains." Other desirable-to-live-in cities include San Diego, Seattle, Orlando, Tampa and San Francisco while the least are Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Minneapolis and Pittsburgh. more ›

One can understand losing out to San Francisco, but being out-gayed by Sydney, Australia, where homosexuality was illegal until 1984? Sydney placed second in the Independent's hierargay, apparently solely on the strength of their fabulous three-week long Mardis Gras, which is the biggest dance party in the country. The UK paper, despite heralding New York as "the gay capital of the world," deems us only worthy of the bronze. Whatever. At least we bested the Greeks—no small feat—and their gaytopia island of Mykonos, which comes in fourth. For contrast, the Independent also shouts out the five worst places to be gay, which include Saudi Arabia, where homosexuality is punishable by death or whipping, and Nigeria, where even writing or talking about support for gay people can land you in prison. [Via Joe. My. God. Photo Cred.] more ›

New York City faced some stiff competition in the Forbes Top 10 “Misery Measure”, but ultimately moped away with a respectable fourth place, losing only to such perennial dystopias as Detroit (#1, forever); Flint, Michigan (#3) and… Stockton, California, in the #2 slot? Apparently, the Bay Area satellite has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country and a swelling population. more ›