What Do Real Thugs Think of The Wire? | Hacker News Reader

What Do Real Thugs Think of The Wire?

freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com

65 pointstyn18 comments

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Full list of links to the story.

1: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/what-do-rea...

2: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/what-do-rea...

3: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/what-do-rea...

4: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/what-do-rea...

5: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/what-do-rea...

6: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/what-do-rea...

7: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/what-do-rea...

8: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/what-do-rea...

9: http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/what-do-rea...

(This is worse than multi-page stories. =( )

True, but in it's defense, the posts were being written as the show was being aired which allowed readers to follow along and respond to the "thugs'" questions about what they thought would happen.

But it should at least have a table of contents or something.

“You want to know what’s hard, Sudhir? Understanding that you just can’t fix [anything] — not always, and not right away. Live with that feeling you got, my brother, ’cause we’re living with it every day. I hope you suffer; it’s good for you.”

> This is worse than multi-page stories. =(

But I bet dead simple to write. I mean, sure, getting in touch with these people and getting them to speak honestly to you is hard, and keeping them coming back probably isn't easy either, but... you go hang out with them, write down what they say, and type it out.

Ah, I was merely commenting on the format of the story. It wasn't HARD to get this list, but it was non-trivial.

really? even relatively educated people don't speak in ways that would be particularly intelligible if you just wrote it down. I'm sure this guy cleaned it up a lot.

The Wire is, in my opinion, the best show in the history of television (or at least of what I've seen). The Wire seems to have received a lot of critical acclaim and a cult following, especially after its end. Too bad it never got the popularity it deserved when comparing it to The Sopranos. Although I like The Sopranos, I think The Wire brought a lot more to the table in terms of writing, gritty realism, and pure entertainment.

One thing that can be both a quality and a problem, is that The Wire is very demanding. A lot of what happens is implicit or not directly seen on camera. Also, episodes are not as self-contained as, for instance Mad Men, where you can watch one stand-alone, without needing too much background on who's who, and what happened before.

Exactly, especially when story arcs last a complete season and sometimes longer. You find that many people can't commit to it. It's not Law & Order..

On a related note, a video game journalist gets Yakuza bosses to play and review Sega's "Yakuza 3":

http://boingboing.net/2010/08/10/yakuza-3-review.html

Cool. Have to admit I'm surprised they sought anonymity. I remember Dave Barry writing

> The yakuza are about as clandestine as the National Football League. Everybody knows who they are. Many of them get large tattoos and chop of finger joints to demonstrate loyalty or some other important gangster quality. Also they're the only people in Japan who wear double-breasted suits, white ties, and sunglasses. "Hi!" their outfits shout. "We're gangsters!"

Everyone knows who is a yakuza, but they don't necessarily broadcast their individual identities.

As I see a few Wire fans replying here, I'd like to recommend two related books that will give more insight and provoke some thought (if you haven't done so already):

Homicide (a year on the killing streets), David Simon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide:_A_Year_on_the_Killing...

The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, David Simon and Ed Burns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corner:_A_Year_in_the_Life_...

Spoiler alert for the first point.

Apparently this reporter is capable of actually doing real research on thug life, rather than the Harvard professors who use "The Wire" as a lazy alternative to studying reality.

They got some things right, as I recall:

"Shine proposed that Marlo would kill Prop Joe; the youngest attendee, the 29-year-old Flavor, placed $2,500 on Clay Davis escaping indictment"

In the Netflix era, spoilers son, spoilers!

I would have been interested to get their take on Omar.

I suspect it would require some heavy editing to be suitable for the Times.

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