Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 02:18PM

I probably could not have written The Authenticity Hoax without the New York Times. Week after week for years now, that paper has been obsessively tracking the leading edge of authenticity-seeking, from no-flush toilets in urban lofts to the very latest in ethnotourism. And it was, of course, the editorial pages of the Times that led the campaign against Walmart's decision to carry a full range of organic produce on the grounds that it violated the spirit of organic -- a trumpet blast that historians will remember as the moment the lovavore movement went mainstream.

As goes the culture so goes the Times, and with the cult of authenticity spiralling ever closer to shoving its head its own ass, the Grey Lady of Manhattan has spent the past year obsessing about what's been going on across the river in Brooklyn. A feat that NBC anchor Brian Williams has called "the media story of 2010". This is genius:

Once a day, there’s a story about all the riches offered in that borough. There are young men and women wearing ironic glass frames on the streets. There are open air markets, like trading posts in the early Chippewa tribe, where you can make beads at home and then trade them for someone to come over and start a small fire in your apartment that you share with nine others. Artisinal cheeses. For sale, on the streets of an entire American borough.

Watch the entire video: