Socialites Slumming It On YouTube

The democratization of media isn’t just for the poor, dahling. The “new socialite” set, taking a (clothed) cue from Paris Hilton, have embraced online video. Tired of being a niche interest amongst New Yorkers, some are breaking from the exclusive confines of aSmallWorld.net and are appealing to the unwashed on YouTube. Not necessarily posting videos themselves, mind you — they have people for that.

But if last season’s SocialiteRank-driven catfight between Tinsley Mortimer and Olivia Romero is any indication, as the gala season — which kicked off last month at New York’s Fashion Week — gets underway, it feels inevitable that some trendizen with a cell phone camera will catch a rival powdering her nose, purging or even in flagrante delicto. Until then, we’ll have to settle for fawning interviews with the likes of “model and activist” Lydia Hearst, above. She’s Darfurious, people!

That segment is from broadband channel Life/Style Television, which also offers lighter fare like this behind-the-scenes at a Tinsley Mortimer photoshoot. (Sometimes I wonder if these names aren’t chosen for their Googlebilty — I’m looking at you, Zani Guglemann). TheDailyTV‘s video asking Mortimer to Kiss & Tell caught the eye of Park Avenue Peerage, the society tracker from James Kurisunkal, which paved his way from Illinois farm country to New York Magazine’s offices.

Kurisunkal’s site is in the vein of David Patrick Columbia’s New York Social Diary, where the photograph has been the traditional coin of the realm. But while more established shutterbugs like Patrick McMullen snap away, Gregory Littely is adding candid video clips to his repertoire, and socialite Fabiola Beracasa is doing video segments for New York Magazine. Spies tell me it’s the wave of the future.

Some of the beau monde have caught the entrepreneurial and publishing bug themselves. Hilton was one of the first celebs with her own YouTube channel, after all. The promotional music video for The Manny was a hit in 10021, New York’s exclusive Upper East Side zip code where it was filmed.

Atoosa Rubenstein has just signed a non-exclusive rev-share agreement with YouTube for her channel AlphaKitty and is also publishing via blip.tv. Six more episodes of her mission statement mini-mini-series Alpha Kitty & Andy are due over the next three weeks, on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Arden Wohl, of the trademark headbands, recently graduated from NYU Film and her student thesis Coven can be seen in all its Leelee Sobieski-voiced glory. (When not attending premiere parties, Wohl is co-producing a movie with George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh).

Lord knows sites like Radar and Gawker will be keeping an eye out for any Ugly Betty-esque revelations now that the summer set has migrated back to Manhattan (with a pause for Bimini and Biarritz when the snows arrive). Worlds are certainly colliding with Lily Allen, her pal Ashley Winksdale and the whole pageant of the publicity hungry pantheon on YouTube these days. Quelle horreur délicieuse!

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