Tag Archives: internet

Kell on Earth: For Whom the Kell Tolls

We were so busy buying bread and toilet paper for the impending snowstorm last night that we missed Kell on Earth . Luckily fictional freelancer Betsey Morgenstern was there during the filming, so she filled us on what happened. The Emu, The Witch, and the Wardrobe Malfuction By Betsey Morgenstern Last we left off, the computer glitch I hacked into Kelly Cutrone ‘s computer system at People’s Revolution PR caused the lists for the Shadow Ralph Pucci show to print out all wrong and Little Stephanie was freaking out and about to cry and Kelly was all, “If you have to cry, cry outside,” and I just laughed and laughed. Hahaha. That’s what Betsey said. It’s an hour before the show and the client is demanding the list and the seating chart but because they can’t print the list out, we’re totally screwed. But Kelly is a cool character and she has a solution. We’re handwriting out the lists and filling in the blanks and, instead of having a paper list that’s wrong, she has us bring all our computers to the site so that we can use the list that’s in the database that is correct. God, Kelly does think quick on her feet. I’m still pissed at Little Stephanie and don’t want this to go smoothly at all, so I formulate a plan. I get on Craigslist and some of the fashion blogs and leave this post: Hey everyone, I work for the PR company that does the Shadow Ralph Pucci show and there aren’t nearly enough people coming tonight and we need bodies to fill the seats badly . Just show up at 7 in the tents and tell the girl at the desk that Stephanie put you on the list. They’ll give you a seat to see the show. You’ll get some fashion, and we’ll get a full house. Everyone wins! We get to the venue and hell is breaking loose at the front door. While Kelly scampers around backstage me and 7 other black-clad PR girls are trying to work the door. They’re checking people on the computer and writing out seat assignments for everyone who is supposed to be there. That’s what we were supposed to do at least. I wasn’t even looking people up I was just putting them in random seats, let Kelly figure it out inside. That’s when all the dummies from the internet started showing up demanding seats, even though they weren’t even invited. Emily was freaking out about how all these nobodies were just showing up trying to fool their way into a show. She was all, “Who are these people? Who told them they could do this.” I didn’t dare answer, I just smiled and said, “People can be such assholes.” Things were getting horrible for Kelly inside, I heard her over the radio saying that Ralph Pucci was getting all upset because there were photographers backstage and he was bitching about them being too close and then they would go away and he would bitch that there was no one taking his picture and then they would come and he would be like “Get those idiots away from me. I am an artiste !” Kelly decided to leave and help sort out the mess with the seating, kicking people out of the front row who thought they were supposed to sit there. Oops! Was that my fault? One guy even gave her all this attitude and when she said, “I’m sorry, you can’t sit here,” he was all, “You should be sorry!” I was ready for Kelly to throw him to the ground and punch him in the face, but I have learned in my short time working for her that she is much more professional than you would imagine. The show itself went well, but everything else was just a mess. Kelly got fired the next day. When she found out she hung up the phone with a loud bang and cursed and swore. At the intern desk nearby, I just hung my head low so that my hair would cover my face as I giggled while attaching 61-cent stamps to envelopes that only needed 44-cent stamps. That’s wasting 21 cents an envelope. See, Big Stephanie is in charge of the interns and she is basically an emu. She’s tall and slender and her head darts around in random directions, but she doesn’t do much of anything. Also her brain is the size of two peanuts squished together. After spending 20 minutes showing everyone how to use a phone (which, duh), she then told us to mail all these invitations to the Generations Denim presentation that was happening the next week. I asked, “Stephanie, which stamps do we use?” She said, “No one told me so, I don’t know.” “Well, then we should use the more expensive ones so that we’re sure they get there, right?” “I was given no direction, so I don’t know.” “OK, then I’m going to use the more expensive ones.” “I’m not going to tell you to do that so I don’t get blamed, but I’m not not going to tell you to do that either.” Of course 20 minutes later Emily tells her that she should use 44-cent stamps so then we have to peel all the 61-cent stamps off and put them back onto the little sheet the come on and put on the 44-cent stamps. Oh, it’s such a joy working with Big Emu Stephanie. I swear to god I would have quit by now if it weren’t for Tim, the hot Irish fellow intern who I always flirt with at work. We had a real run in a few days after the stamp incident. We were all in the office and Little Stephanie went with Little Andrew to get her roots touched up, and Big Stephanie had us sending out gift bags full of jeans to all the editors who would be going to the Generations Denim fashion presentation. We asked B.S. what to do and she said, “I don’t know, but they need to go out now. So do them now. Just do them.” So Tim picks up a sharpie and starts writing all the editors names on the bag. Mary was taking the jeans off the shelf, Sally was folding them, Sam was opening the bag, Harry was placing the jeans in the bag, and I was putting the bags on the floor. We had a whole system. That is until Kelly shows up in the room and sees the nasty tattered bags with loose jeans in them. “This isn’t how you send a gift,” she screamed. We told her that Big Stephanie told us to send them out right away but didn’t tell us how, and she called everyone together and gave us a big lecture about how we’re going to fuck up her business and then she and her daughter will be out on the street and will have no food and her daughter will have no clothes, so she and her daughter can’t go through her closet and play “back to school looks” like she is the star of an eight-year-old fashion show. Anyway, she tells us to take a 30 minute break because she needs her space. I make sure that I’m walking out next to Tim. “Hey, Tim, that was really harsh back there.” “I knoooow,” he brogues. “I dinna want to upset Kella. I feel realla baaa.” I kind of have no idea what he is saying, but as the strange syllables pour out of his beautiful mouth, I start to get a little horny. And we do have 30 minutes to do whatever we want.”Hey, Tim, know what will make you feel better? Maybe we should have sex.” “That sounds fun. But where are we ginna gooo?” “Let’s just walk down Broadway a little bit. They have a public bathroom at Uniqlo. I’m sure they won’t mind if we use that.” “Come on. That sounds like fin.” We went to the store and I had a little poke around with his shellaleigh and we scared a whole bunch of fat tourists from Florida, and it took way longer than I thought it would. What guy last 45 minutes in a public toilet? After we were done we had be gone from Kelly’s for like an hour. When we got into the office, she was pissed. “Tim, where the fuck have you been? I’m trying to run a business here. I said go for 30 minutes, I meant 30 minutes, not come back whenever the fuck you want. Where have you been?” “Oh, Kella. I was, ah…I was ah…tryin’ to call me mum. Yeah. She’s rill worried about me, because I haven’t called home in foreva, so I was tryin’ to find a pay phone so I could call.” “Tim, that’s so sweat,” Kelly said. As soon as you mention mothers her sweet side comes out and she turns into a genuinely kind human being. Tim knew this, the only problem was that his mother died in a car crash when he was 12. “Call her now,” Kelly insisted handing the phone toward him. He didn’t know what to do and just stood there. “Call me,” I whispered out of the side of my mouth while pulling on his pant leg. He nodded like he heard me and I ran off to the bathroom and turned my phone on vibrate. When the phone rang, I put on my best Irish accent and started talking dirty to Tim. He really liked it, even though he had to pretend like he was talking to his mother. Then Kelly insisted on talking to me. I think my accent was good enough, and we giggled and cooed for a few minutes and Kelly was satisfied that she was a nice kind person and all was right with the world. It was a lot to go through for a shag, but Tim was really worth it. When we got back into the intern room, everyone was pissed at Big Stephanie for getting us in trouble so we came up with a plan. The next day when we showed up for work and people asked if we knew we were supposed to work at the Generations denim show, we would all say, “No,” so that Stephanie would get in trouble. The plan went off without a hitch, and Emily even cussed Stephanie out across the office for being an incompetent emu boob. Of course, we all still ended up working at the presentation where the models just stood around in this room with a giant tree made out of recycled newspapers or some shit and the walls were covered in cardboard. In another room, Kelly created a rain fall effect by taking a bunch of Swarovski that her friend George Wayne , the Vanity Fair contributor had swallowed, shat out, and buffed back to a fine polish. One of the models in the room was named Maurice and I was going to have him. Before the show, I started to chat him up and he kept rebuffing me, telling me that there was no way he was going to sleep with some lowly PR girl and then he had the audacity to ask me to go get him a glass of water. What? Oh please, Maurice, better men then you have turned me down, and then to order me around. Yes, I went to go get him his water, but I also stopped by my purse where I happened to have a spare rufie (don’t ask) and slipped it into his drink. Actually, only half because who knows when I might need the rest. “Here you go, Maurice, dear. Enjoy.” Of course, 20 minutes into the show, he totally passed out, taking down half of the George Wayne memorial Swarovski crystal curtain. I was hoping that he would have to like there half dead for the entire show, but Kelly is too good for me. She got the paramedics there, took care of Maurice and then got them out before anyone even noticed. One of these days, Kelly, I’m really going to fuck you up, but it appears today was not the day. Just you wait, Kelly. Just you wait.

Link:
Kell on Earth: For Whom the Kell Tolls

Secrets of The New York Times’ Most-Emailed List, Revealed

Ever since Andrew Wiles solved Fermat’s Last Theorem, the greatest intellectual puzzle facing humankind has been: How does The New York Times ‘ “Most-emailed” list work? Science has finally given us the answer! A team of sociologists at the University of Pennsylvania undertook an exhaustive study of the New York Times most-emailed list. They first assembled a data set based on the contents of the list over more than six months. Then they dug in to see why stories ended up there. Thus they unlocked the secret of journalism’s holy grail— and perhaps even of virality itself. Their findings, as reported by the Times’ John Tierney , are a mix of the totally obvious and the Slate -y counter-intuitive. The obvious: A prominently-featured article is more likely to make the list, as is one written by a famous person. Slightly more surprising is the fact that longer articles were more e-mail-worthy. But the most fascinating findings are also the most useful for anyone hoping to make it on the only list that matters, journalism-wise. Using complicated math, researchers identified four qualities of an article which resonate with the ’email-this’ part of readers’ brains. Most-emailed articles are: Awe-inspiring: Being ‘awe-inspiring’ was the quality which most improved an item’s odds of making the list. These articles blow readers’ minds by dealing with something physically or intellectually enormous—a natural wonder, a work of art, a big idea, the indomitable human spirit, etc. People like to share awe-inspiring New York Times articles at lunch so they can forget their own puniness long enough to finish the workday. (Example articles: “Fury of Girl’s Fists Lifts Up North Korean Refugee” and “The Promise and Power of RNA.”) Emotional: If you want to convince a reader to hit the ’email this article’ button, try tugging on their heart-strings with a weepy tale of struggle or redemption. Soon, their offspring will be deleting yet another email from Mom with the subject “You HAVE to read this article. SO SAD!”. (Example: “Redefining Depression as Mere Sadness.”) Positive: “If it bleeds it leads”—the old newspaperman’s cliche—did not hold up under our researchers’ critical gaze. People like to share happy things, apparently. (Example: “Wide-Eyed New Arrivals Falling in Love With the City”) Surprising: Unsurprisingly, people like to share articles that are surprising. Think, things that make you go “woah.” (i.e. a story about chickens in Harlem, or a marathon-running restaurateur.) Using these four variables, we have visually dissected the top five most e-mailed Times articles as of 11pm, Feb. 9th, 2010. Study them, for they hold the secret of Internet immortality: 1. America is not Yet Lost 2. Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord 2. The New Math on Campus 4. Have Faith in Love 5. For Students at Risk, Early College Proves a Draw

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Secrets of The New York Times’ Most-Emailed List, Revealed

How to Make The New York Times’ Most-Emailed List

In the years since Andrew Wiles solved Fermat’s Last Theorem, the greatest intellectual puzzle facing humankind has been: How does the New York Times “Most-emailed” list work? Social science has finally given us the answer! A team of sociologists at the University of Pennsylvania undertook an exhaustive study of the New York Times most-emailed list. They first assembled a data set based on the contents of the list over more than six months. Then they dug in to see why stories ended up there. Thus they unlocked the secret of journalism’s holy grail— and perhaps even of virality itself! Their findings, as reported by the Times’ John Tierney , are a mix of the totally obvious and the Slate -y counter-intuitive. The obvious: A prominently-featured article is more likely to make the list, as is one written by a famous person. Slightly more surprising is the fact that longer articles were more e-mail-worthy. But the most fascinating findings are also the most useful for anyone hoping to make it on the only list that matters, journalism-wise. The researchers identified four key qualities of an article which resonate on some psychic level with school-teachers, your mother and procrastinating college sophomores alike. Most-emailed articles are: Awe-inspiring: Being ‘awe-inspiring’ was the quality which most improved the odds of an item making the list. These articles blow readers’ minds by helping them contemplate something physically or intellectually enormous—a natural wonder, a work of art, a big idea, the indomitable human spirit, etc. People like to share with others an awe-inspiring New York Times article so they can forget their own puniness long enough to make it through the workday.. (Example articles: “Fury of Girl’s Fists Lifts Up North Korean Refugee” and “The Promise and Power of RNA.” Emotional: If you want to be emailed, try tugging on a reader’s heart-strings with a weepy tale of struggle, or of redemption. Before you know it, their son will be deleting an email from them with the subject “You HAVE to read this. SO SAD.” (Example: “Redefining Depression as Mere Sadness.”) Positive: The old newspaperman’s cliche of “if it bleeds it leads” did not hold up under our researcher’s critical eye. People like to share happy things, apparently. Surprising: Unsurprisingly, people like to share articles that are surprising. Think, things that make you go “woah.” (i.e. a story about chickens in Harlem, or a marathon-running restaurateur.) With this science-approved information in hand, we have visually dissected the top five most e-mailed Times articles as of 11pm, Feb. 9th, 2010. Study them, for they hold the secret of Internet immortality:

More:
How to Make The New York Times’ Most-Emailed List

Hipster Puppies

Link: http://hipsterpuppies.tumblr.com/ Are these a Puppy Collective or Dirty Puppies? [Amanda's Note: Does anyone know if Sam is available for adoption?] The Best Links: Great job, Internet! Read

Super Bowl Commercial Culture Wars

Just Launched for Friday, February 5, 2010

Some recent posts launched by top BuzzFeed users. Read

Pardon Me-cursion

It all started with an old music video of Maxine Swaby's song Pardon Me . It has since swept the Internet, becoming a massive YouTube sing-along sensation for adults, children, and animals alike. The Best Links: Via Boing Boing View

Miranda Kerr Posing in Some Boring Clothes of the Day

Miranda Kerr is a bikini and lingerie model, but for some reason these pictures of her wearing the least revealing outfit I have ever seen a woman in hit the internet. Maybe she’s like pornstars who fuck for a living so they don’t like fucking in their spare time, or maybe she’s like a girl who works at a coffee shop and just can’t stomach the smell of coffee, or maybe she’s like a gyno who is a gay, or maybe in the gyno’s case a gyno who still eats pussy because I am sure they see some vile shit, and really what it comes down to is that I feel seriously ripped the fuck off, something I sure as hell happened to her dress after these pictures were taken….cuz hiding that body that is all she has going for her is a fucking crime. Pics via PacificCoastNews

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Miranda Kerr Posing in Some Boring Clothes of the Day

Stewart obliterates Fox News, BoingBoing, & Huffington Post

Anonymous Pledge to Fight Scientologist Efforts in Haiti

Anonymous, the internet-based group that has waged sporadic wars on Scientology over the last two years, has released a new letter. Prompted, apparently, by the fawning Today Show piece on Scientologists in Haiti they intend to act. The group, given to wearing V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes masks, and pictured above during widely publized protests against the church in 2008, released this message.

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Anonymous Pledge to Fight Scientologist Efforts in Haiti