making it
Remember
James Kurisunkal, the Illinois college student behind Park Avenue Peerage? It's the
other formerly anonymous socialite website, along with the now-defunct Socialite Rank. (He updated it from his dorm room and had never been to New York when he started it—but once
New York magazine came sniffing around for a story, they gave him an internship.) "I suppose they spend a lot of time in the Hamptons in the summer," he
told the New York Times about the socialites he wrote about from afar. Well, now he can find out for himself—we spy his byline over on
Hamptons Style! Aww; we hear he's an associate editor there now. What's he writin'?
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conspiracy theories
There's long been speculation that University of Illinois student and
New York mag intern
James Kurisunkal is getting some kind of outside help with his socialite website Park Avenue Peerage—speculation that James has always flatly denied. Lately, though, the suspicions have been renewed!
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nightmare interns
"Over a poulet de grain rôti at La Goulue, on Madison Avenue, he added: 'I'd always loved New York and felt like I knew it, but I'd never actually been here. My main exposure to it came from 'Sex and the City' and 'Friends.' " That's parkavenuepeerage.com blogger and
New York magazine fact-checking intern
James Kurisunkal, batting his lashes at the
Times today. But is he really a hayseed who knows nothing about NYC that he didn't glean from Carrie and Rachel?
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social mobility
In the
Times magazine this weekend, we
learned that "it is possible to move out of the class you were born into, either up or down... but the transition almost always means a great disruption to your sense of self. And you can ascend the class ladder only if you are willing to sacrifice many of your relationships and most of your values—and only if you first devote yourself to careful study of the hidden rules of the class you hope to enter." Also, we hear that rising U of Illinois sophomore and
Park Avenue Peerage blogger
James Kurisunkal has transitioned from
New York magazine
profile punchline to
New York magazine intern. Congratulations, James!
hall of mirrors
In a photo that ran in
New York on Monday,
Park Avenue Peerage's
James Kurisunkal appears to be wearing a $200 seersucker hoodie made by
Unruly Heir, the company at which socialgay
Kristian Laliberte, who we'd
once suspected of being behind PAP, is a creative director. Maybe it's a total random coincidence! Or maybe Kristian sent James the hoodie as a thank-you gift after he posted a
fawning writeup of Kristian's "busy" lifestyle, complete with candids from a photoshoot for a Japanese magazine, on April 16. Hey, now that we think about it, how did Illinois-based James get those photos of Kristian anyway? Hmm.
—Emily
Update: Kristian sez: "He purchased a hoodie just like everyone else. Just fyi."
genesis myths
Park Avenue Peerage's
James Kurisunkal doesn't just
write about party people. Sometimes he writes about his childhood and his feelings, as in this article about his transition to dorm life in campus publication 'Banana Time' (yes really!)
Surely, as an only child with sometimes-there parents, I was no stranger to home-aloneness. Back home, I would convert my basement into a lavish Hollywood party, with loud music from Mariah Carey's heyday in the 1990s the only pigment of my party that wasn't of my imagination. I was always very good at creating the hypothetical: in fact, during these made-up parties, where I would be the only one in attendance, I'd have a friend on the telephone and I'd walk around, music blaring, speaking to people that didn't exist, telling my friend to hold while I made gossip and connections.
Shocking! But also not!
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socialites
Sure,
Olivia Palermo is on the cover of
New York magazine. But
Isaiah Wilner's hotly anticipated article isn't really about her at all. Nor is it really about Valentine and Olga Rei, the Russian stepsiblings who have finally officially outed themselves as the creators of now-defunct website
Socialite Rank, which "wiped out what little dignity New York society had left." (Hilarious!) It's especially not about
Lydia Hearst, who had
complained to Socialite Rank that she'd been told the article would be about "my career as a model and entrepreneur and success and my handbag"—she is mentioned in the article only as a "nonstop e-mailer" of the site. And it's not about
Tinsley Mortimer, and it's not about Fabiola Beracasa. It's not even about unearthing the truth about Olivia's shameful, and possibly fake, letter ("there are four basic theories") to fellow socials, or whether or not Tinsley really elbowed her at that charity fashion show ("the alleged incident"). Turns out, it's all about the mastermind behind
Park Avenue Peerage, Socialite Rank's successor-site. He's a University of Illinois freshman named
James Kurisunkal. "I live in Urbana, near a farm... I'm like—I'm not even white!" It gets better.
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