Internet celebrity, Grumpy Cat (Youtube)

Last year, the inaugural Internet Cat Video Festival was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, wherever that is. While Minneapolis’s handful of residents primped their whiskers in satisfaction, the legions of devoted feline fanatics in ManCattan and Brooklyn were left feeling more dejected than Grumpy Cat.

Thank heavens this year's festival will be taking place where it rightfully belongs: Brooklyn, concrete jungle where memes are made, and home to big-ticket feline celebs like Sam the Cat with eyebrows, (not to mention a whole bunch of people who really enjoy the Internet).

The festival will be held at the Warsaw concert venue on October 25th, which gives your cat plenty of time to achieve its rightful place in the pantheon of feline greats. So get those iPhones out and any miniature hats that you can find and start filming some roly-polies, stat!

According to the festival's Facebook page, last year's #catvidfest "became its own viral phenomenon, drawing a crowd of more than 10,000 fans to the Walker's Open Field." This year's fest will demonstrate "the same spirit of community and collaboration" and will include music, special guests and more.

What kind of special guests, we wonder? Can we expect an appearance by Japanese celebrity cat, and noted container-lover, Maru? What about existentially-troubled Henri, whose second short film, Henri 2, Paw de Deux , won the prestigious “Golden Kitty Award” at last year's festival?

Either way, we predict this event will be bigger than the Olympics, to say nothing of that canine travesty Westminster, so get your tickets ASAP. Meow's the word.

(h/t Gothamist).

Harper's Magazine

"This redesign is overdue, we realize—a delay not in keeping with what was once a fairly distinguished digital reputation," associate editor Jeremy Keehn wrote in a blog post last week. "Harper’s was one of the first magazines to build a website, way back in 1996."

The new website will be more searchable and have more blog-like content. This is all part of a strategy to build up the venerable magazine's online presence. Looks like the Internet is not the fad that publisher Mr. MacArthur predicted. As recently as last spring, Mr. MacArthur compared the threat of the Internet to the Xerox machine.

"The Internet, I told them, wasn't much more than a gigantic Xerox machine (albeit with inhuman "memory"), and thus posed the same old threat to copyright and to the livelihoods of writers and publishers alike," Mr. MacArthur wrote (in a blog post).

"I said that I wanted to publish a magazine filled with sentences, not build a tree house," Mr. MacArthur recalled saying to someone talking about a "platform" in 2000.

But, alas, we all must succumb to these newfangled things at some point. But although some articles are free, there is still a subscription model. No need to give away the milk....

And there will be a comment section to provoke thoughtful and lively discussion.

"The hope is that the Commentary section on each page will provide a forum for passionate, intelligent discussion about culture, politics, and writing. If it turns out otherwise, we’ll reconsider. Please be cool."

Be cool, guys. Be cool. Any problems? Tweet @Harpers.

So You Think You Can Finance?

It's like that old saying: Give a man a thousand dollars, and he'll eat for a day. But teach a man how to earn a thousand dollars--well, not earn it exactly, but win it--and then ... um ... well, this metaphor just fell apart on us.

In any case, NerdWallet wants you to win a thousand dollars and two free financial planning sessions. The only qualification for participating in this new web series is that you already be so deeply in debt that $1,000 couldn't possibly make a dent in your student loans/credit card bills/etc.

So You Think You Can Finance? No, seriously, that's the name of this show.

From NerdWallet's description:

What do I have to do to win $1000 and free financial planning?

Each week, we will ask our contestants a question about their financial lives. Contestants have one week to blog their answer. Our panel of judges will give feedback on their efforts. When all four challenges are complete, voting will begin. Contestants win by convincing our judges and the voting public of their financial prowess and willingness to learn/improve.

So already you start with a Queen for a Day-esque theme, in which you win by having the biggest sob story. But it gets even weirder. What does a credit card comparison website--that advertises specific credit cards on the site--have to gain from peddling to people with no control over their spending habits? People like Meghan Green from Brooklyn?

Why, everything!  Think about it ... who better to sell credit cards to?? She's young, impetuous, doesn't have a poor credit rating yet, and wants to cash out by traveling around the world on her low-paying salary. Perhaps a "starter" card that has a $1,000 credit on it will solve her problems? Especially one with a very high interest rate??

Actually, this is the most ingeniously evil trap we've ever unwittingly came up with. We feel kind of dirty now.

Elizabeth Warren: Under Twitter attack (Getty)

Elizabeth Warren:why won't she just leave conservatives alone? Why does she insist on keeping her campaign running, despite the fact that she's revealed herself to be either part Native American or an opportunistic liar? (Follow-up question: Which of those two traits do Republicans find more disgusting?)

In an effort to squash the Massachusetts Senate candidate's campaign, racist conservatives have taken to their new best friend, Twitter, to express their outrage over something other than the fact that Rue from Hunger Games was so not black in the books. Today's trending hashtag? #ElizabethWarrenIndianNames. Hey, she started it!

Some of our "favorites" from the social networking hate-bubble, below.
It's funny, because these people claim to be outraged over Ms. Warren using her heritage as a political statement, because that's disrespectful to actual Native Americans. So obviously the answer is to make up "Injun" names that apply to the "Lie-awatha." Oh, down the rabbit hole...

Tech-Savvy MiMA Tower! (Courtesy of Streeteasy)

At the same time that some apartment buildings are emphasizing those weird pre-technological places called libraries, others are boosting up their tech teams to plug you in when you move in.

Related, the real estate developers behind MiMA and One MiMA Tower, has implemented a technology concierge service that will handle tasks from hanging televisions to troubleshooting a home office network, The New York Times reports.

"We’re always looking for what’s on the horizon," Daria Salusbury, senior vice president of Related, told The Times. "What feedback are we getting from residents? It took a little while to figure out that this was a trend, and that’s when we said, ‘We understand technology is really important in everybody’s lifestyle, and we need to embrace that.'"

New residents will receive one free hour of consultation and one free hour of installation. Mrs. Salusbury further noted that large projects will be charged in a lump sum and that "most smaller jobs will be billed by the hour, at a rate to be determined, but competitive with what a chain store like Best Buy would charge."

Related plans to expand it to their portfolio of over 5,000 units within the next month. It remains to be seen whether the concierges will be inundated with calls from the technologically challenged, but at least someone is finally tackling the daunting waits for internet services in this city.

mewing@observer.com

"At least he doesn't have roommates." - You

We're sorry...we know this is super embarrassing, but someone on Reddit found the crazy letter from that investment banker you were dating. You know which one...the guy you met at the Philharmonic who started stalking you after Date One because you wouldn't call him back, so he was forced to Google your name till he found your email? Remember?

The guy who essentially created a spreadsheet detailing how you led him on because you played with your hair during dinner and said "It was nice to meet you" after your first date?

Anyway, we hate to be the ones to tell you, but that letter is all over the Internet now, and we thought you would like to know since you two are keeping the engagement kind of a secret right now.

Looking forward to the wedding,
Us
Update: By the way, you might want to go check on your ex. He's not doing too well either.

Hi Lauren,

I’m disappointed in you. I’m disappointed that I haven’t gotten a response to my voicemail and text messages.

FYI, I suggest that you keep in mind that emails sound more impersonal, harsher, and are easier to misinterpret than in-person or phone communication. After all, people can't see someone's body language or tone of voice in an email. I'm not trying to be harsh, patronizing, or insulting in this email. I'm honest and direct by nature, and I'm going to be that way in this email. By the way, I did a google search, so that’s how I came across your email.

I assume that you no longer want to go out with me. (If you do want to go out with me, then you should let me know.) I suggest that you make a sincere apology to me for giving me mixed signals. I feel led on by you.

Things that happened during our date include, but are not limited to, the following:

-You played with your hair a lot. A woman playing with her hair is a common sign of flirtation. You can even do a google search on it. When a woman plays with her hair, she is preening. I've never had a date where a woman played with her hair as much as you did. In addition, it didn't look like you were playing with your hair out of nervousness.

-We had lots of eye contact during our date. On a per-minute basis, I've never had as much eye contact during a date as I did with you.

-You said, "It was nice to meet you." at the end of our date. A woman could say this statement as a way to show that she isn't interested in seeing a man again or she could mean what she said--that it was nice to meet you. The statement, by itself, is inconclusive.

-We had a nice conversation over dinner. I don't think I'm being delusional in saying this statement.

In my opinion, leading someone on (i.e., giving mixed signals) is impolite and immature. It’s bad to do that.

Normally, I would not be asking for information if a woman and I don't go out again after a first date. However, in our case, I'm curious because I think our date went well and that there is a lot of potential for a serious relationship. Of course, it's difficult to predict what would happen, but I think there is a lot of potential for a serious relationship developing between us one day (or least there was before your non-response to my voicemail and text messages).

I think we should go out on a second date. In my opinion, our first date was good enough to lead to a second date.

Why am I writing you? Well, hopefully, we will go out again. Even if we don't, I gain utility from expressing my thoughts to you. In addition, even if you don't want to go out again, I would like to get feedback as to why you wouldn't want to go again. Normally, I wouldn't ask a woman for this type of feedback after a first date, but this is an exception given I think we have a lot of potential.

If you don't want to go again, then apparently you didn't think our first date was good enough to lead to a second date. Dating or a relationship is not a Hollywood movie. It’s good to keep that in mind. In general, I thought the date went well and was expecting that we would go out on a second date.

If you're not interested in going out again, then I would have preferred if you hadn't given those mixed signals. I feel led on. We have a number of things in common. I’ll name a few things: First, we’ve both very intelligent. Second, we both like classical music so much that we go to classical music performances by ourselves. In fact, the number one interest that I would want to have in common with a woman with whom I’m in a relationship is a liking of classical music. I wouldn’t be seriously involved with a woman if she didn’t like classical music. You said that you're planning to go the NY Philharmonic more often in the future. As I said, I go to the NY Philharmonic often. You're very busy. It would be very convenient for you to date me because we have the same interests. We already go to classical music performances by ourselves. If we go to classical music performances together, it wouldn't take any significant additional time on your part. According to the internet, you’re 33 or 32, so, at least from my point of view, we’re a good match in terms of age. I could name more things that we have in common, but I’ll stop here. I don’t understand why you apparently don’t want to go out with me again. We have numerous things in common. I assume that you find me physically attractive. If you didn’t find me physically attractive, then it would have been irrational for you to go out with me in the first place. After all, our first date was not a blind date. You already knew what I looked like before our date. Perhaps, you’re unimpressed that I manage my family’s investments and my own investments. Perhaps, you don’t think I have a “real” job. Well, I’ve done very well as an investment manager. I’ve made my parents several millions of dollars. That’s real money. That’s not monopoly money. In my opinion, if I make real money, it’s a real job. Donald Trump’s children work for his company. Do they have “real” jobs? I think so. George Soros’s sons help manage their family investments. Do they have “real” jobs? I think so. In addition, I’m both a right-brain and left-brain man, given that I’m both an investment manager and a philosopher/writer. That’s a unique characteristic; most people aren’t like that. I’ve never been as disappointed and sad about having difficulty about getting a second date as I am with you. I've gone out with a lot of women in my life. (FYI, I'm not a serial dater. Sometimes, I've only gone out with a woman for one date.) People don’t grow on trees. I hope you appreciate the potential we have.

Am I sensitive person? Sure, I am. I think it's better to be sensitive than to be insensitive. There are too many impolite, insensitive people in the world.

I suggest that we continue to go out and see what happens. Needless to say, I find you less appealing now (given that you haven’t returned my messages) than I did at our first date. However, I would be willing to go out with you again. I’m open minded and flexible and am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I wish you would give me the benefit of the doubt too. If you don't want to go out again, in my opinion, you would be making a big mistake, perhaps one of the biggest mistakes in your life. If you don’t want to go out again, then you should have called to tell me so. Even sending a text message would have been better than nothing. In my opinion, not responding to my messages is impolite, immature, passive aggressive, and cowardly. I spent time, effort, and money meeting you for dinner. Getting back to me in response to my messages would have been a reasonable thing for you to do. In addition, you arrived about 30 minutes late for our date. I’m sure you wouldn’t like it if a man showed up thirty minutes late for a first date with you.

If you're concerned that you will hurt my feelings by providing specific information about why you don't want to go with me again, well, my feeling are already hurt. I'm sad and disappointed about this situation. If you give information, at least I can understand the situation better. I might even learn something that is beneficial.

If you don't want to go out again, that I request that you call me and make a sincere apology for leading me on (i.e., giving me mixed signals). In my opinion, you shouldn't act that way toward a man and then not go out with him again. It’s bad to play with your hair so much and make so much eye contact if you’re not interested in going out with me again. I have tried to write this email well, but it's not perfect. Again, I'm not trying to be harsh, insulting, patronizing, etc. I'm disappointed, sad, etc. I would like to talk to you on the phone. I hope you will call me back at xxx-xxx-xxxx> (if it’s inconvenient for you to talk on the phone when you read this email, you can let me know via email that you are willing to talk on the phone and I’ll call you). If you get my voicemail, you can a leave a message and I can call you back. Even if you don't want to go out again, I would appreciate it if you give me the courtesy of calling me and talking to me. Yes, you might say things that hurt me, but my feelings are already hurt. Sending me an email response (instead of talking on the phone) would better than no response at all, but I think it would be better to talk on the phone. Email communication has too much potential for misinterpretation, etc.

Best, Mike

The moral of This Beautiful Life (Harper Collins, 240 pages, $24.99) is the same as that of The Odyssey: If you have a good life in Ithaca, think twice before leaving it behind. Also, watch out for the sirens. Plug your ears with wax, cover your eyes, break your laptop, do whatever it takes to avoid looking at the provocative video sent to you via email. Especially if its star is an underage girl.

In Helen Schulman’s fifth novel, the Ithaca in question is Ithaca, N.Y., where the Bergamot family once lived happily, employed by Cornell University, and which is rich in suburban luxuries like parking, trees and good public schools. But hubris and ambition bring the Bergamots to Manhattan, where Richard Bergamot takes a high-powered job as vice chancellor at “Astor University,” a place that seems to share the same geographical coordinates as Columbia University, as well as its politics. Liz Bergamot, a sometime art historian and professor, leaves her part-time career in Ithaca to become a full-time mother to her two children, 15-year-old Jake and 5-year-old Coco, who is adopted from China.

At the book’s start, it’s the spring of 2003, and the Bergamots are closing in on their first year in Manhattan. For the most part, they have adjusted well: Richard excels at his job, and Jake and Coco are thriving at their new school, a prestigious private academy where they have free admission, thanks to their father’s position. Liz, however, is uneasy in her new role as a stay-at-home-mom and feels out of place among the other “formers”: women who identify themselves as former editors, lawyers, bankers, agents—whatever profession they left behind. Liz’s situation is not, on the surface, that different from her life in Ithaca, but Manhattan is giving her class anxiety: her new cohort is wealthy, while she’s originally from a working-class neighborhood in the Bronx and has misgivings about raising her children in a privileged, fast-paced milieu.

Her fears are, as it turns out, well founded. One night, when Liz is helping chaperone Coco’s sleepover at the Plaza Hotel, Jake is invited to party in Riverdale, where he dons beer goggles and makes out with the party’s host, a precocious eighth grader named Daisy. The next morning, he’s ashamed of his behavior, and his embarrassment is deepened when he opens his email to find that Daisy has sent him a video of herself, performing a graphic striptease. In one impulsive moment, he forwards the video “like a hot potato” to his friend, who forwards it to his friend, and so on, until everyone at his school—not to mention his parents, their friends and hundreds of thousands of strangers—have seen it. Because the video is an email forward, Jake’s name is attached to it, and he is immediately suspended from school. But that’s just the beginning of his troubles.

What follows is part legal drama, part domestic tearjerker, as the Bergamots try to salvage their reputation and keep their family together. They hire a lawyer with “eyes … that emit no light” to take on Jake’s school and defend him against Daisy’s family. The lawyer advises them to leak their version of the story to “some kid reporter … someone ruthless and eager and hunting for blood.” With this directive in mind, the Bergamots contact—who else?—The New York Observer. When The Observer article (“Prep School Pornathon”) comes out, the Bergamots are shocked by the media blitz that follows. The story begins to be tracked not only by tabloids like the New York Post, but by websites like Gawker.com (in 2003, a new addition to the online scene) and UrbanBaby.com as well. Soon, kids are wearing “Free Jake Bergamot” T-shirts. Jake is overwhelmed by his sudden change in status: “In one week, ten days, he and Daisy had become sort of celebrities. Now they were forever linked and pitted against each other, just like divorcing movie stars.”

Unsurprisingly, Liz discovers that she doesn’t have much support among her new friends, who are more interested in dishing dirt about Daisy and her parents than they are in comforting her. Richard also finds that his professional network is thin, and he is forced to take a leave of absence at a crucial moment in his job. Jake, meanwhile, becomes more popular at his school, but he is so consumed with guilt that he can’t enjoy it. Even little Coco feels the strain and acts out at school, dancing lewdly in front of her kindergarten classmates. As the pressure on the Bergamot family mounts, the compromises of Liz and Richard’s marriage, tolerable in a time of peace, become untenable. Liz resents the sacrifices she’s made for her husband’s career, while Richard believes that he has been forced to shoulder too much responsibility and is irritated when his wife becomes depressed. Before Daisy’s video, the Bergamots’ biggest marital problem was difficulty conceiving a second child, but they were able to overcome that with adoption; there is no equivalent solution for Internet defamation.

It doesn’t spoil anything to say that things don’t end well. Like a Jodi Picoult novel, This Beautiful Life is one of those topical horror stories that people read as much to inflame their anxieties as to work through them. In another writer’s hands, it might come out as a cautionary tale, but Ms. Schulman is careful not to paint anyone as villain or victim. Jake is portrayed as a confused, but ultimately well-meaning kid, Liz as an anxious, but ultimately thoughtful mother and Richard as an egotistical, but ultimately responsible husband. Daisy is also portrayed sympathetically, if vaguely. The only glimpses we get into her life occur at the beginning of the novel, when she makes the video, and at the end, when she’s working as an intern at Goldman Sachs—an ambiguous fate, if ever there was one.

Throughout This Beautiful Life, there is the nagging feeling that Daisy and the Bergamots would have been just fine in 1993, but in 2003 they are doomed, caught in the cross hairs of the Internet. This is likely Ms. Schulman’s point, but it’s hard to feel sorry for characters who are undone by technology rather than by any real moral failing or fatal flaw. At times, This Beautiful Life even felt dated—it’s unclear why Ms. Schulman chose to set a novel about sexually explicit material gone viral in a time before YouTube and smartphones, not to mention TwitPics. Then again, it’s worth remembering that one of the most popular video memes of 2003 was “Star Wars Kid,” a video in which an awkward high school boy practices Jedi moves with a golf ball retriever. It was one of the first cases of a video made for private consumption becoming unintentionally public, when the boy’s classmates leaked it as a prank. There was a lawsuit—the boy and his family sued for emotional distress, and won—but nevertheless, today the whole scenario seems pretty innocent.

This Beautiful Life captures some of that innocence, especially when it details Richard Bergamot’s initial reaction to Daisy’s striptease: “For all the video’s dismal raunch, its tawdriness, for all its sexual immaturity and unknowingness, there is something about the way this girl has revealed herself, the way that she has offered herself, that is brave and powerful and potent and ridiculous and self-immolating and completely nuts. It speaks to him. Is he crazy? He feels crazier in this moment than he has ever felt in his life.”

The bewilderment in this passage is recognizable, even in 2011, when we are all a lot more blasé about the things we see online. Ms. Schulman’s ability to unearth such a heartfelt reaction is noteworthy, especially in a novel that seems, at first blush, to be a story about the way the Internet is stripping us of our humanity. Although This Beautiful Life will probably not remain relevant for very many years, for now it’s a good reminder of the complicated ways in which the Internet seeps into our private lives and changes them, for better and for worse.

editorial@observer.com

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

We can't imagine sitting on a bench with a laptop in this heat, but universal wifi is an encouraging trend. Broadband infrastructure is considered by some, including Fred Wilson, to be essential to making New York a tech hub, but Mayor Mike Bloomberg has dismissed city-wide wifi as too expensive and complex for the city to get involved with. One company, Towerstream, has an ambitious plan to turn on 1,000 wireless routers in June that would blanket seven miles of the city and serve as a backup for carriers supporting smartphones connected over increasingly bogged-down 3G networks. Almost universal; not free.

tacitelli@observer.com :: @tacitelli

On Wednesday, Village Voice Media gave its sex blogger Jamie Peck notice that the racy sex-news site she'd edited for eight months, Naked City New York—the curiously unheraled existence of which was exposed in by The Observer in December—would sort of roll over and go to sleep without ever reaching the mind-blowing climax of a public launch. 

News of the sites' demise came, as all news does, in the form of a tweet—this, on Ms. Peck's feed:

Wow, just found out NakedCity is dead. If anyone's been thinking of trying to hire me to write/edit for them, now would be a good time.

Her Los Angeles counterpart, AV Flox, proprietress of Naked City Los Angeles, didn't respond to a request for comment, but her site hasn't been updated since Tuesday and may have suffered the same fate.

In a web chat, Ms. Peck, who posted 519 posts during the New York blog's lengthy test run, told us VVM's director of new media Bill Jensen broke the news to her via email. (Men.) "He said the budget had been cut again and Naked City hadn't made it," she wrote.

According to Quantcast, monthly traffic for the sites has been growing, topping out at around 7,000 page views, sparse but respectable for a pair of websites that were still slinking around on the DL.

Though disappointed, Ms. Peck said the experience had been a good one. "I'd never been the sole editor of a blog before (barring branding stuff I've done for Converse), editing other people, making an editorial schedule, etc., so that was definitely a good experience." She refused to disclose her salary—"that would be tacky"—but did mention one perk.

"It was fun to watch the review copies of pornos I got in the mail with my boyfriend," she wrote. "We both have a pretty gross sense of humor."

VVM Director of New Media Bill Jensen hasn't responded to an email seeking comment, but we will update when we hear back. 

agell [at] observer.com | @aarongell