NYC journalist mocked for piece about trip to Midwest

This guy’s take on fly-over country crashed and burned.

A journalist from Brooklyn got mercilessly mocked for a “condescending” article about his trip to the Midwest — after writing he was stunned to find “more than just corn fields” and even “trendy restaurants.”

The Insider article by Frank Olito chronicles his recent road trip to Chicago and Detroit in an article titled, “I’m a New Yorker who visited the Midwest for the first time. Here are 15 things that surprised me.”

He then writes that he was shocked  by “warm weather” and “more than enough entertainment and culture to keep any traveler busy” in the Rust Belt.

The article, published this week, also muses that the Midwest had “lower prices,” a “slower pace” and “nice” people.

Visitors take pictures in front of the Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park on June 15, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois.
The article, published this week, also muses that the Midwest had “lower prices,” a “slower pace” and “nice” people.
Getty Images

But critics quickly turned him into the butt of a joke on Twitter — skewering him for being pompous and out-of-touch.

 “I, a New Yorker, went to the Midwest and discovered they have real live peoples! Also, they have toilets!”  Iowa-based author Lyz Lenz tweeted sarcastically.

Others bashed him for framing Midwesterners as a bunch of rubes with no fine dining.

“No s**t for brains we just go to the farm and suckle on some cow teet [sic],” Chicago resident El Cunyado quipped.

Others slammed the scribe for his no-duh observations while one user called the piece, “profoundly patronizing and asinine.”

“Frank Olito, a New Yorker, went to two of the biggest cities in the Midwest and discovered they’re different from New York! But also the same!” author Sam Brunson tweeted snarkily.

In the article, Olito, who lives in Brooklyn, also writes, “To my surprise, many Midwesterners told me winters weren’t as bad as New Yorkers made them out to be.”

He added, “There’s an emptiness to the Midwest that I’m not used to as a New Yorker.”

His Twitter page describes him as a “sometimes comedian, most times writer living in New York City.”

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