Importing BuzzFeed Style Listicles (tapping the psyche of the community)

Photo credit: Pedro Ribeiro Simões on Flickr. Creative Commons licence. Image cropped.

While at GoLocalPDX, I encouraged the team to do BuzzFeed-esque posts about “Why this is great…” and “What that is bad..” etc.  The idea, of course, was to take some of BuzzFeed’s ability to tap into the gestalt of a given demographic and condense it into a listicle that really resonated with people.  Because it was GoLocalPDX, we did these listicles in slideshow form. The schtick was to tap into Portland’s personality, both it’s traditional working-class-Pacific-Northwest personality and its new-chic-mecca-for-young-people-and-their-trivial-pursuits personality.   When these post worked, they really drove pageviews.  I think the most successful ones were those we came up with as a team and that really touched a nerve in terms of the community’s collective psyche.

Here is one of my favorites:

10 Reasons it Stinks to be a Straight Single Woman in Portland

Portand: You’re a wonderful city, full of hipsterish, handsome men. You’ve got a great nightlife, a fantastic cultural offering, and a million awesome places for a date.

But finding a boyfriend in this town is harder than finding a brunch venue without a line.

Sure, if you’re a single woman and happy to remain so, this city is probably as good as it gets. But if you’re hoping to become un-single at any future stage, you’ve got a problem in PDX.

Below are our 10 reasons why it stinks to be a single straight woman in Portland.