| TED KRUCKEL 05.28.09 12:31 PM |
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My Night as a Hipster on Gawker's Rooftop and at the New Ace Hotel
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 | Gawker's event for Party Down had badly behaved waiters, just like the show, only cuter.
Photo: Antwan Duncan |
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It is refreshing that while all the traditional media are fading faster than we can blog about it, Gawker has to suck up to its advertisers to survive just like everybody else. Also refreshing is that they do it with their snark intact.
The Starz Network, a premium channel that we all get and never really know why, was thanked for sponsoring the celeb-transfixed Web site with a rooftop party for Gawker's community of commentators. The wisdom behind the idea that this group of opinion leaders who traffic in both delicious and indefensible blind gossip would somehow be swayed into a supportive audience for two of Starz’s original series, Head Case and Party Down, was something I wanted to see for myself.
A young digital media buyer from Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners’ Media Kitchen by the name of Andre Woolery at least convinced me that the cable channel’s money was being thoughtfully spent. Both fairly well-reviewed shows poke pointedly at the service industries they portray, psychiatry and catering, respectively, so why not recruit the most sarcastic of audiences first and hope that their invective trickles down?
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RELATED TOPICS
Gawker, Starz, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Paper Magazine |
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| NEWS 07.28.08 12:08 PM |
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Chanel's Touring Pavilion: Culture or Commercial? (How About Both?)
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 | Zaha Hadid's temporary art container for Chanel
Rendering: Zaha Hadid Architects |
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Last week The New York Times revealed when and where Chanel's touring art exhibit will land in New York: It opens October 20 in Central Park's Rumsey Playfield and will run through November 9. The 7,500-square-foot pavilion, dubbed Mobile Art and created by London architect Zaha Hadid, was first revealed last year and has already sparked a debate over whether the project is too commercial.
According to The Times, the fashion company is donating at least $1 million to the Central Park Conservancy for use of the site during the promotion and will pay another $400,000 to the city. When questioned by The Times, parks commissioner Adrian Benepe brushed off potential criticism, saying, "Everything has a sponsor." But according to Metro New York, some park advocates fear Chanel's mobile pop-up is a "troubling trend" toward commercialization of public parks.
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RELATED TOPICS
Chanel, Zaha Hadid, Pop-Ups, The New York Times, Metro, New York Magazine, Gawker |
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| NEWS 04.09.08 1:19 PM |
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Of Course, Not All YouTube Exposure Is Good Exposure
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 | The moment before the fall
Photo: Courtesy of beck64 |
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Speaking of YouTube videos of events (as we have been this week), today Gawker posted a clip from a fashion show in Charleston, South Carolina, showing a woman falling on a runway, and then falling through the runway. According to a Web site called LiveLeak (what you'll find if you Google "Charleston Fashion Week falling"), the fallen woman is the owner of local boutique K. Morgan, who missed the runthrough of the show—when she would have learned the middle of the catwalk was sheer fabric intended to let light shine through the floor. There seem to be myriad lessons to be learned here. (Possibly among them: Go to the runthrough! Don't make a floor from fabric!) We'll let you take from this what you will.
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Building Buzz With Online Videos, YouTube, Gawker |
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| NEWS 11.09.07 4:44 PM |
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Just About Everybody Hates Atlantic Party With V.I.P.s on Stage
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Upon hearing about The Atlantic Monthly's plan to hold its 150th anniversary party for a group of V.I.P.s on stage at an NYU auditorium, with regular folks watching in the audience, you may have thought, How can that possibly go well? Now the first reports from last night's party are in, and they're not good—from either side of the stage/audience divide.
On his blog, James Marcus, who bills himself as a "writer, translator, critic, and editor" (he's been published in The Atlantic), called the anniversary "surely one of the most dispiriting parties I've ever attended." Describing his time in the audience, he wrote, "For about two minutes, this scenario had a certain Pirandellian charm. That quickly evaporated."
P.J. O'Rourke, who served as the M.C. of a discussion during part of the evening, told the guests who weren't offered any free drinks, "Us having a party up here, while you watch it from down there, is stupid."
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Atlantic Monthly, Atlantic Media, New York Observer, New York Magazine, Gawker |
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| NEWS 10.22.07 2:38 PM |
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Gawker Learns How Guest Lists Are Made
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They may have brought about the Age of Insolence, but evidently the folks at Gawker still have some innocence left. "[A]n invite list for a fancy party somehow fell into my inbox, and each name had coded entries like: "[Starry McTvstarlet] UNDER30/CUTE/ONAIR/300/[Starlet] BFriend" and [Modelly McExwife] 300/600/LI/MODEL/FASHION/LITERARY," editor Emily Gould wrote on Friday afternoon. "Whoa! Was this standard industry practice? And what did the codes mean?" You probably won't be shocked by what she learned when a publicist schooled her in the ways of guest lists.
RELATED TOPICS
Gawker, Guest Lists |
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