1. Tao Lin is a writer who is really a personality and popular with people on the internet. he was at the party, and it was weird because standing in a room with him just makes you feel like you are online.
2. his zine party was full of NYU kids, partly because it was near NYU, partly because that’s who goes to launch parties for the zines of people with popular Tumblr blogs, but also — i like to think — because NYU is like the #1 school for undergrads walking around in this intense proximity to people and things they might think are cool, and constantly working on figuring out how to insert themselves into these scenes of coolness or status, and actually having the potential to do so. (i mean, it is a college in downtown manhattan.)
3. i worry sometimes that the internet has totally exploded this old situation where if you knew someone’s name or followed their work, it meant slightly more about their level of achievement, because now people are fascinated by the “insider” quality of others who are fairly ordinary and do not possess nearly the importance some might think they do. you probably know what i mean with that. there is a weirdness to it that can make a body start getting awfully mentally midwestern and weirded out.
