The Trend Story, Mastered: HuffPo Does Gay College Hookers!

THIS IS THE PERFECT TREND STORY! This is IT. It is about how young gay men are “increasingly” (!!!) becoming “sugar babies” to pay for college! Let us break down how it works!

• “Kirk is hardly alone in his decision to sell sex in order to pay for school.” (Just alone so far in this story but hey, we get more anecdotes later!)

• “An increasing number of gay male students”

• “In addition to a lackluster job market”

• “While young gay men exchanging sex for money certainly predated the financial collapse”

• “recent events have pushed some students to consider”

• “risky behavior that in more robust economic times might have been unthinkable”

• “according to several owners of websites that broker such hook-ups.”

I. Can’t. Even.

There’s an expert who “studied the gay sugar baby culture as an undergraduate at George Washington University.” (Ooh, an undergrad research paper. Although to his credit he interviewed 100 kids and sounds smart!) And “an assistant professor of public health at Brooklyn College.” And it ends with an anecdote of a dude who can’t even get picked up on the “sugar daddy” websites.

Also the reporter randomly goes to a straight sugar daddy party for some color. It’s perfection. This is the end of trend stories: a glittering conjuring up of a thing that is to some unknown extent real, packaged into 3D, co-produced by Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer in a big gay SEO cuddle-puddle. I LOVE IT.