Connections: Hamptonization
Those of us who have been around awhile remember when there were no Hamptons. The South Fork was composed of towns and villages and hamlets that had singular characteristics — unique histories, unique environments (both natural and manmade), unique social characters. Few of us were savvy enough to anticipate a time when “the Hamptons,” as a place of the popular imagination, would become more familiar to the American people at large than, say, East Hampton ever was.
As it has come to pass, the majority of those who live or vacation in Amagansett or Springs or Wainscott or Water Mill have drunk the Kool-Aid and now refer to “the Hamptons” as if it were a homogenous unit. It is interesting that Montauk rose to its current phenomenal success as a weekend destination (or its ruin, depending on your point of view) largely because it stood apart from all this. It was supposedly a “un-Hampton,” that is, perceived not to be in or of the Hamptons. Sag Harbor was always a place apart, too.
These observations are not new, but I got thinking of them afresh while looking at some of the free, glossy summer magazines that are now ubiquitous here and that trample over each other for public attention and public space.
In them, the Hamptons are almost universally lumped together as a common denominator. I hesitate to say the “lowest” common denominator because luxury is what they are supposedly all about.
The glossies that brand themselves as covering the Hamptons, be they published in Manhattan or theMidwest, are sales vehicles. They promote celebrities, fashion companies, luxury-goods makers, home goods, and decorators and designers. Don’t get me wrong, almost everyone, even the old fuds among us, can have their interest piqued by pictures of what lots — and lots — of money can buy; there is a curiosity factor at work. But what these Hamptons-themed publications boil down to is commercial. They are selling products.
In case you are wondering, yes, I do think that a paper like The East Hampton Star is different: The Star and similar publications use words and images to disseminate news, whether it is about the government or a Little League team or a neighborhood sculptor. The entities that buy advertising space, be they commercial or cultural, piggyback on the content that we generate for our readers.
In my opinion, trading editorial space for advertising dollars is not only a questionable practice, but a dishonest one, since readers are unlikely to realize that stories and photographs have been paid for. It’s not surprising that such trade-offs are common among some of the lesser glossies you glance at on your way in and out of the gourmet food store.
By contrast, The Star will lean over backwards to ensure that no strings are attached to its coverage. We have always tried to keep the boundary between editorial and advertising sacrosanct. For example, we go to great lengths in our annual dining guide, A La Carte, to include every eatery here rather than limit coverage to those that advertise. Our publications are intended as a service for our readers.
The late Everett Rattray, in his more than 20-year tenure as editor of this paper, and his parents before him, set this standard. The rich and famous have come here since the late-19th century, and The Star has always wanted to help them get to know and appreciate the East End. We have never expended much energy attempting to exploit their celebrity (or notoriety, as the case may have been) to sell papers. We have championed the idea that the uniqueness of this place — of any place, and that is my point — should be guarded and cherished through careful stewardship of local lore, local place names, and local knowledge. We’re still at it.
There is a lot of talk in the culture these days about buying local. Everyone wants their corn grown and their beer brewed as close to home as possible, not just to support members of the community financially, but — as globalization continues to homogenize the world and our experience of it — to protect the natural variety that makes life worth living.
It is my opinion that, slowly, readers are coming around to an understanding that the “going local” philosophy can be applied to newspapers and magazines, too.