I love when the new yorker gets posted to HN because of how many people will proudly announce themselves not equal to the challenge of a mainstream middlebrow magazine article.
Long form journalism is not a common thing anymore, men (who dominate HN) are not enthusiastic readers anymore, and the cultural conversation that a dead-tree magazine represents is no longer amplified in mass media (as opposed to an era when David Frost and Dick Cavett had primetime shows on TV).
I don't disagree about the reverse snobbery, but IMO people being "not equal to the challenge" isn't the actual problem.
This was just a slog that I felt went nowhere and the points were buried in between rambling information about Sacks and his gay lifestyle, lovers and living in NYC and the gay lifestyle there at the time.
Not only was it not interesting, it was poorly written and hard to read. Sometimes writers just need to stick to the facts instead of trying to write another "The Phenomenology of Spirit" for a "middlebrow magazine".
Writers write, and editors edit, for an audience. HN is definitely not a perfect match for the New Yorker's intended audience.
But most readers of the New Yorker would choke on the kind of stuff that is perfectly aligned with HN's readership, so...
It's the equivalent of those people on Reddit or social media in general who make fun of three-star Michelin restaurants.
I get that sometimes you just want McDonald's, and I don't think there is a definition of better and worse in either of these contexts that doesn't require injecting some kind of taste. But nonetheless.