Mr. Van Veen purchased the the co-op, located at 720 Greenwich Street, for $1.35 million back in February of 2008, city records show. The apartment is now listed for slightly less at $1.3495 million.

The Observer spoke to Mark Chin, the Town Residential broker handling Mr. Van Veen's former abode. While he refused to discuss the proprietor, he was happy to dish about the space.

"The nice thing about this building is that it’s a very old building," Mr. Chin said. He cited the barrel vaulting as a key element of the prewar building. "What that means is you have a foot and a half of conerete and masonry between you and your neighbors," he said, making the space a quiet sanctuary, perfect for cracking jokes without the guffaws annoying the folks upstairs.

The loft-style one-bedroom  spans 1,000-square-feet in an angular layout. With river views and exposed brick walls, the place is perfect for a West Village-inclined bachelor looking to make moves on nearby coeds.

eknutsen@observer.com

Ricky, nee Richard Raphael Van Veen (no, that is not a joke), just bought a $2.45 million condo, according to city records. The two-bedroom, two-bath place is located in tony development The Campiello Collection on West 17th Street, a surprisingly conventional choice for the comedic wunderkind.

That said, Mr. Van Veen has been expanding his off-color empire and is perhaps hoping to ensconce himself in an area where people won't keep  mistaking him for a mop-topped N.Y.U. sophomore. But with his rising entrepreneurial star and new Chelsea digs, will he keep his diminutive epithet?  Maybe he'll go for something a little more stately like Dick... Or Rapha?

We spoke to Douglas Elliman broker John Gomes, who listed the condo with his colleague Fredrik Eklund, and while he refused to comment about the buyer he shared some details about the space. "It just has beautiful light and its really large—it’s a nice set up," he said. "It has two winged bedrooms, and both of the bedrooms are quite large."

According to floor plans, the master suite—which comes with a sizable dressing room and en suite bath—is a full 282 square feet, while the spare bedroom spans 278 square feet. But one serious question remains: when pals Josh Abramson and Jakob Lodwick come over to crash and watch sweet YouTube videos, who gets the couch and who the guest room? Or will there be some bro-snuggling action?

According to Mr. Gomes and Mr. Eklund's listing, the apartment has an impressive kitchen with a dishwasher, five-burner cook top and grill, a wine cooler and a garbage disposal, just in case Mr. Van Veen finds the Chelsea fare doesn't suit his liking.

Mr. Van Veen purchased the apartment from Janet and Andrew Masucci who list New Jersey as their primary address. The couple bought the apartment in August 2010 for $2.25 million.

eknutsen@observer.com

"I will definitely have to train my brain to get out of this little rubric it has been in for awhile," Mr. Van Veen, 28, told the Observer in an interview this morning. He had a recent discussion with story creator Cleve Keller (who worked on Disney shows like "Doug" and "Sabrina the Teenage Witch") about an idea for a wedding show. "It was funny because I haven't talked about any wedding Web programming, you know, ever, so it was very refreshing."

Figuring out how to wrap up all that viral video hit magic from, say, a Minnesota wedding party jamming to a Chris Brown song, and translating it into TV show buzz will be Mr. Van Veen's big challenge.

"If you think about the media clutter right now, there's so many television stations, there's so much programming that I think bringing an Internet mentality to other mediums like TV would be very beneficial," Mr. Van Veen said. "On the Web you have to sum up what your piece of content is in one link or nobody is going to watch it. That's the same thing I've been hearing from TV executives--is we need a program that you can have on the side of a bus and someone can watch it go by and get what the show is and want to watch it."

He'll specialize in unscripted, "zeitgeist-y, buzzy content" and figure out ways to "bridge" TV and content on the Web--not just splice up a TV show into clips and slap them on a Web site. "We've been talking about shows where the Internet makes the show better," Mr. Van Veen said. He has been discussing the project with Mr. Diller for the past year and will report to him directly.

He'll get some help from six other Notional team members, including a president of television, Dave Noll. Mr. Noll's production company City Lights Media generated reality programming like Food Network's "Chopped" and dating advice show "Wingman" for Fine Living Network. In 2001, Mr. Van Veen and Mr. Noll worked together on a college TV network show called "Get $tupid." "The 'S' in 'Stupid' was a dollar sign, so you get how advanced it is," Mr. Van Veen said. "We'd go around campus and dare people to do things; I dare you to streak the quad, I dare you to eat a cigarette butt, you know, pour water over this guy's head as he walks through the dorm door." Typical, clip-y CollegeHumor type stuff.

But Mr. Van Veen is hoping to move beyond YouTube-friendly jokes for the dorm-dwelling set. The Notional team already started pre-production on a new project yesterday, on July 27, but Mr. Van Veen wouldn't divulge any details about its premise just yet.

"I think it's easy to get caught up in this Web 2.0 world where, you know, [people's say] 'Television is dead, the Internet is so much better than television," Mr. Van Veen said. "But television is great. 'Lost' is great. 'Grey's Anatomy' is great." (Ricky Van Veen name-dropping 'Grey's Anatomy'? He really is thinking about the ladies, ladies).

"When people tell you Web content is better than television content, they probably don't mean that, they probably enjoy the format of the Web better than the format of TV," he added.

But TV is still struggling with the pull of the Internet --and figuring out how to grab the same kind of excitement from millions of views of a CollegeHumor clip made on a skeleton budget and bring that buzz into the living room (and beyond). Perhaps Mr. Van Veen and recent NBC-to-IAC transplant Ben Silverman should do lunch.

The show is based on the 10-year-old College Humor Web site of which, in a piece published in 2005, the New Yorker's Rebecca Mead wrote, "Girls without their tops on are one very popular source of college humor, as are girls kissing each other." Also: beer cans, funny T-shirts, vehicular mishaps and cute animals.

But the show, which premieres Sunday night, is something different. The invitation for the launch party described it as a "scripted off-beat look" into the office lives of the people who create the Web site's content and "play themselves" in story lines set within the company's actual offices on Park Avenue South. 

The Daily Transom asked one the site's founders, 28-year-old Ricky Van Veen, who had paired his suit with his customary Converse sneakers that evening, what it meant for him and his eight colleagues—Amir Blumenfeld, Dan Gurewitch, Jake Hurwitz, Jeff Rubin, Patrick Cassels, Sam Reich, Streeter Seidell, and the one female cast member, Sarah Schneider—to "play themselves." 

"We're playing exaggerated version of ourselves. So we're basically taking our real selves and making them dumber and more vulnerable, and basically taking our worst qualities and blowing them out," he explained. "So I'm just like an absentee, unjustifiably arrogant, name-dropping boss. I guess in real life, that's what I work on not being. And Jeff, for example, is a video game guy so he's like the nerd character."

Mr. Van Veen continued: "Comedy writers tend to look the same. We're all just kind of pale white guys and most of us are Jewish. There's not a lot of character differentiation appearance-wise so we kind of had to be like, O.K., you're going to be the shy guy, you're going to be the nerd, you're going to be the fat guy."

The term "scripted reality" and the idea of playing oneself brought to mind two of MTV's other reality shows, The Hills and The City, in which "characters" like Lauren Conrad and Olivia Palermo, respectively, get to "play themselves." But Mr. Van Veen suggested that The College Humor Show works in an almost opposite way. 

"I think The Hills is like, they put these girls in certain scenarios and see what happens whereas we're already in this scenario, and then we script it," said Mr. Van Veen. "So whereas The Survivor is like, let's script this premise and then the execution will be real, we're actually working from a script." 

Later in the evening, Mr. Diller, whose green- and red-lighting decisions for his many companies come as down as weekly orders, not suggestions, came down in good spirits from his sixth floor office to say a few encouraging words. 

Mr. Van Veen seemed to think his 67-year-old boss (whose birthday was Monday) was still hip to what the kids are into these days. "He gets what the show is. And you know, he has an entertainment background. While he's not focused on this, if I give him a DVD to watch, he'll watch it and tell me what he thinks," said Mr. Van Veen. "I gave him the episode today and I haven't heard from him yet, but he and I get along pretty well. We'll see what he says, but I'm not too afraid." 

The evening sounded just like a fantasy of a reality show. Nike Communications had wanted to throw a party at Esprit Flatiron—a V.I.P. Shopping Night, to be exact—and they’d handed the keys to six young P.R. gunslingers from the internship program. With Ms. Chrisner as their chief, the kiddies would be in charge of everything: drinks, music, balloons and models.

And if the invitations did their job, every intern in New York City would be there to enjoy the spectacle. And if not …. But Ms. Chrisner didn’t like to think like that. She wouldn’t.

J-Kwon boomed out of the speakers. It was still a bit early, and already a mess of hard-bodied, well-dressed pre-profs were sipping vodka and Red Bulls and browsing in the clothing racks. Errrbody in the club gettin’ tipsy! was the word.

But others knew it wasn’t much of a club at all. Though the store had been transformed into a sexy meeting ground for Manhattan’s not-yet-elite, the stage had also inadvertently been set for a supremely awkward evening of self-conscious networking and doomed, fresh-faced flirtations. But these were the faces of the future—they just knew it! They were all really doing their best to mingle—and to chase down the elusive waiters, too. And they were all looking forward to the day when they’d arrive on the Hamptons cocktail circuit, still wiping fleshy chunks of their current superiors from their gleaming jaws.

The fluorescent lights and preppy pastels cast an oppressive glare, and the blinding white walls of the store had the sterile sense of a surgery ward. Red and white balloons floated near the ceiling, and a cheap red carpet had been draped across the floor for the models who would be making their runway moves later on.

Ms. Chrisner had felt the stress of being in charge for weeks, and now she heaved a sigh of relief. She smoothed her hands down her slinky black dress. The interns had decided to go noir for the evening, so as to make themselves less conspicuous.

“Our team is called InsightPR, inspired by the ‘I’ for ‘intern’—and through the eyes of interns, we will get them to come to our Esprit,” Ms. Chrisner said. By that proclamation, she proved herself to be a P.R. natural. But when asked if she would really be a publicist proper some day, she suddenly felt it all catch up with her.

“We’ll see,” faltered the 21-year-old. But just as suddenly, she was back on message, all smiles and sunshine. “I love what I’m doing. I feel so great about this event!”

Ms. Chrisner felt the eyes on her. It was Michele Horner, her keeper, a real-life Nike elder who was there to watch over all the underlings. Tonight, the two looked like the ghosts of P.R. present and future, with little Ms. Chrisner in the driver’s seat and Ms. Horner with her foot on the emergency brake. Tonight, the sun was setting in the east.

Laura Randle, a thin British expat, stood apart from the networking American youngsters, the careerist frenzy unfolding around her. She quietly and efficiently browsed the merch. Her green eyes were entirely hidden behind a $330 pair of enormous black Chanel sunglasses.

Ms. Randle couldn’t be asked to pay attention to the models, the D.J. or the little interns. Her precisely cropped brown hair stopped short several inches above a slim, striped black blazer, and a Saks Fifth Avenue bag dangled from her hand. One might have thought she looked every bit the Anna Wintour in training.

“This party is so cheesy,” she complained in a whisper. “It’s bollocks.” Ms. Randle had come to town for summer classes at N.Y.U. She had previously tried her manicured hand at a number of careers: journalism, modeling, photography. Already she was a bit fed up with the Yanks.

“They’re too hyper,” she muttered. “They wear shorts! They have dodgy accents. Everyone just wants to get high and drink. I want to do exciting things—things you can only do in New York.”

Before long, Ms. Randle was on her way to the Nerve.com Writer Soiree, held, frugally enough, at the online sex journal’s offices in Soho.

As soon as she got to the Nerve party, Ms. Randle met a man. She ditched her two escorts and spent the rest of the evening roosting on a couch with him at her side. Apparently talking shit all night with some corporate loser is one of those “exciting things” you can only do in New York.

Sprightly Ricky Van Veen always wants to be the host. The high-rolling CollegeHumor.com mastermind greeted each arrival with a welcoming smile and a pad of pink hearts. Each new guest received a quirky compliment on a heart-shaped note. “You have nice handwriting,” he wrote, grinning kindly and sticking the note to the sleeve of the two young men who had just arrived. It was as if he could sense the visitors’ heartbreak over losing Ms. Randle. He’d swooped in just when things were at their bleakest.

Such intuition could only belong to a child, and as Mr. Van Veen dodged through the throngs of Ivy League freelancers and Columbia grad students—most of whom make less in a year than he does in a month—it was clear that “opposite day” at Esprit was simply the norm in the Nuevo Silicon Alley land of Spring Street.

“It’s a lower-Broadway Internet scene,” Mr. Van Veen said as he scribbled out yet another compliment. “It’s like a big nerd community.”

The New York Times contingent was made up of the oldest of the very young. Heartthrob journos Nick Confessore and Warren St. John talked in one corner of the loft with Gawker Media maestro Nick Denton. They looked as if they were frozen in a Cargo photo-shoot tableau. If you could have stepped into the crisp scene, you would have heard the journos talking shop.

Mr. Denton, always on the get, made an unsolicited and ambiguously serious job offer to one of the reporters. He was declined. Surely the two reporters thought of their union.

Malcolm Gladwell sipped from his Budweiser. He stood in a corner, in the shadow of Nerve.com impresario Rufus Griscom. “I know Alisa,” Mr. Gladwell said, pointing to Mr. Griscom’s blond wife. He was reticent that evening.

Still, every guest in the room was thrilled to be in the presence of Mr. Gladwell. Was it because, at 41, and with so much success, he was the closest thing to an authority figure? Even the Cinderella generation, it seems, needs someone to look up to. Sure, it’s exciting to be a power punk running the show, but Mr. Gladwell’s stream of New Yorker articles carries an unnatural gravitas. Perhaps that’s what keeps him so quiet: What would become of Mr. Gladwell’s reputation if he suddenly succumbed to, say, the hearty, childish pleasures of greeting visitors with affectionate, knowing notes scribbled on little pink hearts?

Dear Ms. Randle, meanwhile, expended much energy laughing at her couch boy’s jokes. Those unfortunate suitors who were jilted by her spent the rest of the evening in the smoking room; as the night ground on, they groused about her. Soon everyone was leaving.

Finally, the British beauty left with the corporate cog.

And we, The Transom’s interns, walked home to our Manhattan summer sublets, kicking ourselves all the while for not coming up with all that College Humor swag first. Still, we have learned that it’s a kid’s world, folks, and even if we do lose a girl like Ms. Randle to some schmo who works in an office, we can rest easy knowing that he—and you as well, dear reader—will probably die before we do.

—Leon Neyfakh and Michael Grynbaum

Last Days, End Times

It’s easy to get lost in Last Days, Gus Van Sant’s cinematic meditation on the final moments of Kurt Cobain’s life. Rock-star mumbler Michael Pitt, as the Cobain-inspired Blake, murmurs his way through the searingly beautiful landscape that surrounds his crumbling mansion.

Blake stumbles around in a tight black dress and Doc Martens. Later we see him pass out, while a Boyz II Men video plays on the television. One screening attendee said afterward: “It’s a hipster movie—it’s beautifully shot, and not much happens.” Likewise, last week’s premiere, and its after-party at Pianos, were a similar haze of beauty and boredom.

On the red carpet at Landmark’s Sunshine Cinema, a reporter for a vapid monthly didn’t recognize rock royalty Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore. Ms. Gordon plays the role of a music executive in the film, and Mr. Moore was the music consultant for the film. “Wait—so there are two people in the band?” There are five. “And they’ve been around for a while?” They’re in the Marc Jacobs ads. “Oh.”

It seemed the stupidity was contagious. (“Everyone here is from L.A.”) One columnist asked Lukas Haas about his biggest fear. It turned out to be spiders. Mr. Pitt, looking ever so grungy in his torn-and-splotched T-shirt, was asked the same question. “Journalists and photographers,” he graciously replied. Vapid Monthly wrote that down.

At Pianos, an Asian-supermodel type in the corner of the room considered the chips and salsa and asked no one in particular, “How does this work?”

While The Transom is well aware that Thursday has been the new Saturday for some time, one woman falling out of her top advised us: “You think this is nuts, come back on a Monday.” But Monday’s after Sunday, and Sunday’s after ….

—Blythe Sheldon

Peggy’s Möbius Strip

“What can you say about Peggy that hasn’t been said already by Peggy?” asked Bob Balaban. It was publicist Peggy Siegal’s birthday bash—although Ms. Siegal had hijacked her own party to publicize Mr. Balaban’s new animated series. In which Ms. Siegal herself appears. As, no less, a publicist.

Tan and ready, Regis and Joy Philbin joined the party in the Le Trianon Room of the Hôtel Plaza Athénée. “How is this going to work?” asked Ms. Philbin. They were accompanied by the less-squirrelly-in-real-life Gelman. The wolfish, pink-polo-shirted reporter Jacob Bernstein lurked in front of the elevators, ready to pounce.

At one point in the first episode of the show, Hopeless Pictures, Ms. Siegal, playing Peggala, comes up with a film-promotion idea to send her invitees just one shoe. Actual attendees receive the other shoe when they show up to the film.

“I’m using that idea for a real film. Art imitates life,” said Ms. Siegal. (And yes, this real film has “shoe” in the title.)

After the showing: “How do we find our seats?” asked Audrey Gruss. Apparently the socialite had mistaken The Transom for a member of the staff. Ms. Siegal, in a lacy pink dress, spent most of the night in the dark dining room, leaning over and touching the shoulders of her guests: Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets, John and Susan Hess, Claudia Cohen, Joel Siegel, and Michael Lynne from New Line. The Philbins—and that darn Gelman!—dined with Barry Levinson.

Gary Siegal, Ms. Siegal’s brother, bragged about his daughter Mattie’s successes and Oprah’s recent visit to her school in East Hampton. He also voiced some concern that Ms. Siegal was (although we don’t believe it) getting his daughter into nightclubs. Aw, let the kid live a little!

And Annette Siegal, who bears a resemblance to the younger Ms. Siegal, particularly in the vicinity of her perfectly coiffed and streaked hairdo, remained quite quiet throughout the night, in contrast to her son’s loquacity.

—Raegan Johnson