It's possible this Amazon recruiting video from 2013 is super-old news (and here I use "news" as others use "literally"), but even if it is, damn, dude. "Life in Seattle" was presumably designed to lure reluctant brainboxes to a city (justly) famous for bad weather and bad attitudes. Though there are many subtexts in the clip, I will leave it to the internet to dissect the various strands of "privilege" that it flatters and seduces. The theme I'm fixated on is the one that says, "Don't worry. Seattle is not too cool for normals like us."

This bit of coded messaging anticipates what my excellent former Stranger colleague Josh Feit would call "double-reverse-backflip" snobbery in the snide lamentations about all the bros and woos crowding the mirrors at the Unicorn or whatever. "Not cool enough" is still a durable subcultural scold, all the more durable because it's unanswerable. Making lots of money remains the only reliable counterpunch. There's a lot more to the culture war, but let's not forget that anxiety, shame, and dread are the real invisible hands in this particular economy.

Since the great tech-worker influx continues to dominate what we can laughingly call the "conversation" about the changing "culture," demography, and vibe of our fair city, this basically innocuous video—which has the eerie, Parallax View-y social engineering dimension shared by all corporate videos—is weirdly revelatory. Like the Seattle it advertises, "Life in Seattle" has something for everyone: Cynics can scoff. Ironists can smirk. Social-media commenters can't even. But you have to admit: The city in the video wasn't so much a depiction as a prediction. And it appears to be coming true—much to the frustration and rage of a lot of people who feel like they took a little nap in the gutter only to wake up covered in hot asphalt.

There is obviously a massive gulf between life in Seattle and "Life in Seattle." It's worth wondering: Which side is the "other" Seattle, and for how much longer?