Here's a rundown of some of the more promising names in child-labor media. Some of the names will probably look familiar to you, since these kids are famous. Far more famous than most media hacks. In other words, they're coming for your job, loudly.

The Dating Advice Kid

Name: Alec Greven

Age: 10

Summary: His dating-advice book How To Talk To Girls is supposed to become a movie; he now reportedly plans How To Talk To Moms, How To Talk To Dads, How To Talk To Santa and How To Talk To Grandparents. Original publisher HarperCollins is presumably working with him on all of the followups.

More: Here's video of young Alec.

British Blog Boy Wonder

Name: Scott Campbell

Age: 14

Summary: Started British news website, contributes to BBC and various newspapers

More: Campbell is CEO of Net News Daily; with co-founder and editor-in-chief Nathan Adam, he claims 100,000 unique visitors per month, and has scored freelance gigs with the BBC (left) and writes a regular column for the newspaper First News. Asked earlier this year in a Guardian profile how the economic downturn was affecting his business, he said, "I'm 13, so therefore don't have a lot to lose in the financial crisis."

The Lil' Food Critic

Name: David Fishman

Age: 12

Summary: Aspiring food critic profiled in the New York Times; his Upper West Side New York tablehopping has been optioned by Lorne Michaels for a movie.

More: "As I left, I knew that soon enough this would be one of the most ‘hip' places in the city."

(Image via Rachel Ray)

The Pint-Sized Political Pundit

Name: Jonathan Krohn

Age: 13

Summary: Talk-radio regular and self-published author became a smash hit when he spoke at the CPAC right-wing convention.

More: The home-schooled youth practiced public speaking at Christian Youth Theater plays and calling in to Bill Bennett's radio show. Has appeared on CBS News and Today. His endorsement was sought by a Georgia gubernatorial candidate.

Barack Obama's Journalist 'Homeboy'

Name: Damon Weaver

Age: 11

Summary: A successful quest to interview President Barack Obama made him the talk of cable news.

More: After ending an earlier interview with vice presidential contender Joe Biden with, "Senator Biden is now my homeboy," got permission from Obama to also be the president's "homeboy." Has completed such other White House Press Corps rites of passage as attending the inauguration on a media pass and dissing an MSNBC talking head.

The Teenaged Tech Titan

Name: Daniel Brusilovsky

Age: 16

Summary: Founder and CEO, TeensInTech.com; product evangelist for video-casting service Qik; writer for TechCruch; has 120,000 followers on his "Verified" Twitter account.

More: He's an adviser to at least two companies; his parents used to shuttle him to and from tech conferences; says you should be persistent to reach your goals. More here.

(Pic by Randy Stewart)

"The message of the movie: There is no "answer" to life. People will never be happy. There is no God. Everyone is lonely inside and everyone is ugly…as a result, they do things that hurt each other. Society sucks, but being a loner sucks even worse. I mean, I've been a happy existentialist…yea, I realize that humans are all fucked up inside, that people are never going to know the meaning of life, that there might not be a god…but that's always been freeing for me. "Hey, who the fuck knows, life's a party" kind of thing. But fuck, seeing this movie just hit me where it hurts."

Ouch?

The movie took in $32.5 million over the weekend, but will they be able to sustain it with that kind of toxic word of mouth?

Christine Spines at Entertainment Weekly had a much different experience. Despite the early reports that the movie matched the description of our former viewer, Spines decided to subject her children to the movie as her "own scientific study." It turned out her kids lapped up the Spike Jonze adaption of Maurice Sendak's short story, of which the original text is comprised of just ten sentences. The younger child, five-year old Huck, was enraptured from start to finish. The older child, 15-year old Ethan, didn't appreciate how Jonze molded the story into his own creation and pulled the collar of t-shirt over his head to text friends. A clever trick I'm tempted to try myself when dragged to the latest chick flick by my disapproving girlfriend.

Maybe a movie about a solitary child liberated by his imagination is actually inhibited by older folks who won't allow their imagination the room to take in Jonze's adaption, spoiled by our own childhood memories of experiencing the book. In an ironic twist, it might actually be more of a children's movie.

Okay, fine. It's for the manchild hipster in all of us. Let the wild rumpus whatever, bro.

From the Guardian:

About 200 youngsters showed up, not all of them intent on behaving themselves.



Up to 70 police officers from two forces, including dog handlers and a helicopter team, were needed to break up the party,

Keep in mind that the teenagers who organized the event didn't even include their address in the invitation, and had the apparent cooperation of parents. But Facebook + teenagers + alcohol = "Lads were jumping over the fence from other gardens and we ended up with about 150 in our garden," as one of the parents put it.

Far better is something with some built-in social friction, like a written invitation, or a painful-to-use website like, say, eVite!

(Pic: A prior Facebook riot, which erupted last year, started as a "small private gathering" to drink cocktails on the London tube. Getty Images.)

Hollie Steel - soon to be mortal enemy of Susan Boyle - was performing "Edelweiss" from "The Sound of Music" when she forgot the words and began to cry. The two Ryan Seacrest-esque British lackeys told her she was screwed and she began to cry some more. This is ridiculously sad and cute: The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Generally cruel, mean, and hysterically well-manicured Simon Cowell, who's shown an admittedly softer side on Britain's Got Talent (and thus: his utter contempt for Americans), vetoed his producers' decision to not let her perform again. She then got on stage, and properly killed it.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Sure, Susan Boyle probably wouldn't have been given a do-over, the show's been accused of manufacturing drama, and Detective P*r*z has accused her of faking her crying. But I'm not cynical enough to accuse her of any of those things, or maybe I just want the wool pulled over my eyes on this one. And even if she did fake the crying: good for her! The kid's got talent and guile. Win-win.

Meanwhile, the good action on the books has little Hollie at a 16:1 bet. I will not be your bookie at tips [at] gawker [dot] com, nor will I take PayPal or cold, hard cash as very acceptable forms of payment.

This email went out to the Park Slope Parents Messageboard, the place where the community is kept safe:

Dogs IN Tot Lot??!!!
Posted by: "bklynfam" jewelsluv@gmail.com bklynfam
Sat Apr 18, 2009 5:13 pm (PDT)

Dear Parents,

I am very upset that so many parents violate park rules and bring their dogs INTO the Tot Lot. For example today I was there for just 2 hours and three people brought their dogs. One of those parents even let their dog OFF LEASH. I am livid.

I don't care how cute, or small your dog is, or if you are holding it on a tight leash. Keep your dog out of the playground away and from MY child and all the children!! And when I say something to you about your dog, don't give me an attitude. You are breaking the rules and being totally arrogant and irresponsible. Leave your dog at home like I do.

Rules are rules for a reason. The fact is that dogs are animals and can turn mean for any reason; another kid or parent gets too close it it's owner or child, a child pets it too hard, or pulls a tail or ear, OR as toddlers do, FALL, may fall on a dog or near it and scare it. BITE.

Call To Action: Write a complaint e-mail to the Prospect Parks department asking for clearer, more prominent sign that clearly state NO PETS. Send you e-mail to info@propectpark.org . And say something to people who bring dogs. Tell them it is not allowed. If they don't leave or give you s++t, then call the Parks Enforcement Patrol at 718-437-1350 (put this number in your cell phone).

Thanks,
Juliette- dog owner to a dog that stays home, and mom to a toddler that betta' not get bit by someone's dog...

...OR ELSE, bitches. Or else.

The "Park Slope Parents" fight is ostensibly about a plan by the listserv moderators to charge the parents $25 to remain on the list. In reality, it's just like all of Park Slope's other epic battles: a contest to see who can be the most shrill and sanctimonious.

Somehow, the moderators continue to "win" this entitled bitchfest. They could have, for example, just let list participant "Joanna's" epic weekend diatribe speak for itself.

Declaring she was done "self-censor[ing],", the mother denounced "self-righteous... earth-destroying" Easter-egg hunt rules, the coverup of a video camera theft (we think?), the environmental slander of kitchen scraps (the methane can be contained!) and, best of all, some jerk-ass French brat who ruined rock climbing in the park for EVERYONE.

Instead of just letting this very entertaining message go out to the list, the moderators decided to block it, on the grounds that Joanna's "heart of hearts" would have blocked it, too. (That's totally our new moderating standard on Gawker, by the way.)

If any other Park Slopers have an urgent rant they need to get past the jackbooted censors at PSP, just send it our way. We'll publish it, provided it is at least this awesome.

Joanna's message is below, followed by her back-and-forth with the moderator.

(Top image via)

For the mom and dad who harbor secret kangaroo fantasies. Or just love the stomach-bursting scene in Alien. [Peekaru via Daily Mail UK. Oh shoot Daily Intel had this earlier. Oh well.]

Some lady's plan to charge people $25 for access to their precious precious listserv of yuppie commiseration may have a fatal flaw: some dude could just start another listserv. It's crazy enough to work!

One enterprising Brooklyn dad — miffed at plans to charge members of the popular Web site "Park Slope Parents" an annual fee — created a competing online group and quickly signed up 15 members.

Craig Bromberg, a father of twin boys, said it took him only 10 minutes to get the user group "Park Slope Kids and Parents" online.

By god we look forward to a long and acrimonious relationship between these two competing messageboards of doom. "'I, for one, expected better of Park Slope Parents,' fumed one poster, who signed herself as 'Anna, mama to Alice, 15 months.'" Fucking forget it, Anna mama to Alice. This shit will get ugly.

Meanwhile, the hot topic of conversation on Williamsboard: "so i just found out a friend of mine took this girl's virginity using one of them NYC condoms last week."
[Pic via]

A few years ago, a huge internet war broke out on that very same forum when someone had the audacity to write that they'd found a "boy's hat," clearly a vicious assault on the gender-neutral safe space that was Park Slope. You can read all the emails from that epic philosophical battle here, if you're unclear on why Park Slope Parents are one of the worst cultural subgroups this side of the Minutemen.

Caught up? Okay. On to the new issue which threatens to tear the very fabric of the Park Slope Parents online community into two gender-unequal parts: it seems that the "moderators" of the group want to charge its 13,000(!) members a $25 fee to continue posting. They work hard and they want what's coming to them, okay? They've posted an incredibly lengthy FAQ to the outraged members describing why, exactly, they deserve the cash. (Idea: write shorter FAQs, feel less overworked!). Some highlights of this battle for the soul of the proletariat:

We'd like to thank the members of Park Slope Parents for their support, patience, and tough questions during this time of transition. One of the things that Park Slope Parents has been known for is our ability to disagree without name-calling and personal attacks. Many of you have been taken aback by the news of the membership fee. Many of you are angry and would imagine from the posts that some of you feel hurt as well. For that we are sorry, since as fellow parents (and in many cases friends) our desire is to be ever-supportive of each other.

Heh!

—-How is the money going to be spent?—-

The primary use of the money we raise through membership fees will be used to pay salaries for the current Park Slope Parents staff (Susan Fox and Rachel Maurer as well as other staff whom we hope will be hired), and to pay for the website fees and for costs associated with in-person events. Here's just a sampling of what these staff do:

* Research and post information and events useful to our members
* Find, train and manage moderators on membership approvals, message
approvals, questionable posts, nanny posts, advertisements and the like.
* Research and write surveys, program the survey, send requests and
follow ups to members, clean data, crunch data (solicit and manage
volunteers to help) create toplines and presentations of surveys (e.g.,
Nanny Survey, PSP feedback surveys)
* Write, collect, and convert online survey reviews to the website
(e.g., daycare reviews, camp reviews)
* Read and field ideas about possible PSP events (e.g., seminars,
book signings, Mommy and me exercise classes, etc)
* Address concerns from members about questionable ethics related to
PSP (e.g., bartering for PSP reviews, trolling for business, bad nanny
posts, prosletizing in the park)
* Answer questions from members about potential spammers/trollers,
research the company, follow up with the business, email Constant
Contact and other direct marketing corporations about abuse and follow
up until we reach a resolution
* Field the accuracy of messages posted to the list which may be
inaccurate
* Find, hire and manage computer consultants who update PSP website
software. Research changes to software and decide if upgrades are
needed.
* Review online community software and vet emails from Yahoo! groups
competitors
* Receive and answer emails from local organizations and businesses
about posts on Park Slope Parents (e.g, Methodist Hospital, CB6,
Brooklyn Children's Museum, businesses which receive negative reviews,
etc.)
* Manage non-moderator volunteers (Who offer to compile information
for the PSP Website, offer to help organize events, etc.)
* Create new content from Yahoo groups' summaries and create
links on the website and inform group of addition
* Organize, find volunteers, set up, attend, and follow-up after PSP
events (Park Slope Parents Concerts, Harvest Festival, Spring Fling,
Celebrate Brooklyn concerts)
* Create new categories of content for recommendations section when
needed

Sounds fucking horrible. I should warn you that that's just a portion of Question #1 from this 16-question FAQ, which features its own table of contents. Let's just do one more, shall we?

—-Online communities should be free. It's the members that make it what it
is. Why are you charging for something that someone else will provide
for free?—-

Yes, the Internet is "free" in the sense that it's an open worldwide network of networks. Yahoo! groups does not charge for groups and people can start another Yahoo! Group easily. There are many other groups (Urban Baby, Moms Connect, etc.) which you can join. The underlying goal of many of these other groups, however, is to sell your eyeballs, find ways to market to you, get you to click on their ads or buy their products so they can repeat this cycle. Website stickiness and use is the goal, not community building.

We have never tried to keep people from starting another list and we encourage people through "other online groups" reminders and website page that there are many other groups in other communities to join. People who oppose the new fee are welcome to start a new group and run that list in any way that they see fit.

Park Slope Parents is full of amazingly talented, educated, wonderful people who have, over these past 6 1/2 years, contributed a wealth of experience and support to the group. We thank each and every Park Slope Parents member, past and present, for their contributions and hope that this new development will not in any way decrease the support or feelings of camaraderie you feel to other parents.

However, the work that goes into maintaining is not 'free' if the group wants to maintain an online community of this size with a high level of civility and integrity, free of spam and too much commercialization. Clearly the organizers have made the list look like it runs itself, which is both a compliment and a barrier the acceptance of this new fee. Park Slope Parents has the character it does specifically because it is both carefully maintained and informed by a sense of responsibility to the community and the other members of the list. As Park Slope Parents grew, so did the behind the-scenes work created by that growth, including (for example): anonymous post protocols, moderation of
conversations to avoid "flame wars"; mindfulness of the impact discussions can have on local businesses and individuals; soliciting and maintaining commercial posts; posting events for schools and non-profits, planning community events, and oversight of caregiver listings.

Someone likened Park Slope Parents to a town square where people can freely converge and discuss issues. But even town squares need maintenance. The cracks in the sidewalk need to be fixed, the advertising flyers people leave need to be cleaned up, and if a riot breaks out, there need to be people who manage the situation so it doesn't cause permanent damage to the community.

... Someone else likened Park Slope Parents to a town square where witches are burnt alive. The pyre has been lit, my friends. This FAQ alone certainly represents $325K worth of work, but no matter; Park Slope mommies are loading their shotguns. The end of this will not be pretty. Hipster kickballers: this is your future.
[Pic via]

The Facebook group is currently 258 students strong. Many feel that Franco, who graduated from the institution last year before coming to New York and falling asleep, is their peer, man. Not someone who can drop some real knowledge on them. The group's comments offer such salient arguments as "I don't want the green goblin speaking at my graduation!! lol", "WHAT THE FUCK HE'S A FUCKING POTHEAD", and "I seen you on tmz, so i decided to join for the hell of it."

Well kids, we seen you on TMZ too and we think you're idiots. The funny thing about Commencement is that YOU WILL NOT REMEMBER IT. Like, at all. If you are remotely good at college, you will be in no state that morning to pay attention to anyone, be it Bhutros Bhutros Ghali or Daniel Desario. For those few nerdy, chaste souls who will, somehow, be awake, just take pleasure in the fact that you can spend your precious last few moments of glorious responsibilityless freedom gazing at the visage of an angel.

Or, you know, you can write letters to the University and just waste these final months—before adulthood begins its long, unavoidable process of crushing you into a miserable shell of your once young and carefree self—complaining about something that pretty much means nothing.

No matter what happens, his speech is bound to be worse than these. So, there's that.

Or at least it is according to Page Six Magazine, which doesn't have many of statistics in its twins story, "New York's Diaper Rush," but does have a lot of quotes from obnoxious, status-obsessed Gotham mommies.

Some of them will stop at no number of $25,000 in-vitro fertilizations rounds to get pregnant with twins. Because:

• Attention. Says Risa, a 35-year-old Upper East Side mom who said she had her twins naturally: "If I am ever depressed, I put my boys in the stroller and take a walk down the street and people just go nuts."
• You can turn them into revenue-generating TV stars. Risa, whose sons were cast in the soap opera Guiding Light: ""Because of the labor laws, children can only work a certain number of hours, so identical twins are in such high demand."
• It means you're rich. Brinton Taylor Parson, counselor at a prep school for prep schools: "There is an inordinate number of moms in Manhattan who view their children as an accessory."
• They can stop being mommies sooner. Said "a Gramercy Park mom:" "While my friends are bracing themselves for baby number two and all the sleep deprivation and chaos that comes with it, we are planning a family trip to Hawaii."

On the downside, having twins makes it even harder to get your kid into that elite prep school you have heart set on, because the school feels like it has to take both twins or neither. ("Who is going to let me take up two spots?" asks Upper East Sider "Caroline.")

But you can always complain about that and the regular meetings of twin moms "who only want to hang out with other twin moms." Twin rates are skyrocketing, so it's a very powerful and growing cabal to belong to.

Jesus, Chevy Traverse, why? Her nodding bombardment at the end is particularly soul-searing. [I have been looking for this awful commercial all week so thanks to Brandfreak for digging it up. May it now die.]

That's what the New York Post is reporting today, at least. The girl, a Miss Porter's School student athlete from Beaufort, SC was harangued by a group of 13 mean girls into a terrible spiral of anxiety and despair, causing her to cheat on tests and skip classes to stay afloat and sane, which eventually got her expelled from the $43,000 per year lycée. The former honors student had never displayed these untoward tendencies until the social clique, named after an old Russian death squad apparently, decided that she was being too uppity about the biggest, most important, most let's-invite-those-baby-faced-boys-boarding-school-date-rapists-and-wear-nice-dressesest night of the year.

As Dr. Spock recedes in the rear window, fading to pebble size, our children continue to be more and more coddled. Didja hear? What ruined, flabby, protected little simps they are, right? Anticipating a backlash to the whole sissy kid trend, I guess, the Times has now urged us that teasing and status negotiations are good, natural, enriching parts of the human experience. So why the heck then (won't someone think of the wolves!) the article smart-assedly asks, are schools cracking down with zero tolerance policies (in the wake of teeny, tiny little hiccups like the Columbine massacre) and companies imposing mean old sexual harassment rules? Well, I think it's because, yes, maybe we are coddling kids a bit too much, but there's a line and there's an across-the-line that's increasingly easier to get to and unfortunately, character building as it may be, some people go through unnecessary hell as youngsters.

Ms. Bass and her parents are suing the Farmington, Conn., institution, hoping to get Bass (like in Gossip Girl!) reinstated at the school and maybe, you know, some sweet ass damages money. I wonder, Dacher Keltner (who wrote the odious Times article that you really should read if you haven't gotten super angry yet today), what do you make of all this? Is this a story of the bad "bullying" you talk about, versus the all-important hierarchy-shaping "teasing" that you so praise?

And, more importantly, I wonder: when you're an anxious, self-conscious sixteen-year-old what the fuck, dear sir, is the fucking difference?

Maybe if this young woman had been donating her eggs to buy groceries Ms. Kuczynski would have understood that all this reproduction-for-hire was a product of her billionaire-centric world as surely as the Blahniks and Versace she used to trill about — that college and surrogacy are available to people like Ms. Kuczynski and not to others because that's how our system works.

Instead she tells us, very sincerely, how much she enjoyed spending the last few months before the child arrived "by white-water rafting down Level 10 rapids on the Colorado River" — presumably Level 10 rapids are really quality rapids — "racing down a mountain at 60 miles per hour at ski-racing camp, drinking bourbon and going to the Super Bowl." She also does a lot of "Bikram yoga," which is presumably a really quality form of yoga.

What she doesn't tell us is even more revealing. Of the story's nearly 8,000 words, there are only three quotations from the surrogate mother. Ms. Kuczynski does not describe this remarkable woman's clothes or, really, tell us her thoughts about much of anything. About Ms. Kuczynski's own feelings and fears and cravings we get paragraph after maudlin paragraph. The one who does the labor is almost completely silent.

Oh snap! Way to stick it to those plutocrats! They might be able to have their way with the Times, but they'll get no love from the Wall Street Journal opinion section!

Wait, what?

Oddest. Newspaper. Class war. Ever.

According to the Senate's official inauguration website, "Due to increased security and space constraints, strollers are not permitted on the Capitol grounds."

Greg Allen, a New York father of two (and blogger, of course) complains, "It's like, 'No history for you, kids.'" Nope. That's what TV is for!

They also might seek "life rights" to the young epicurean fop, named David Fishman, we guess in the hopes that his little journal scrawlings will produce more gold like "As I left, I knew that soon enough this would be one of the most ‘hip’ places in the city." Because everyone loves it when 12-year-olds tell them what's going to be hip. You know, there used to be a time when kids were allowed to be kids and this kind of sad, I'm-a-grown-up-now, desperate pay-attention-to-me behavior was discouraged and parents were chastised for ignoring their lonely offspring. Nowadays, what with progress and all, kids like this get NYT profiles and movie deals and their kiddie gumption, in place of any actual knowledge of what food criticism actually is, is richly rewarded.