Now that Harvard's precious purveyor of boasts and toasts, 02138 magazine, has gone down in Manhattan-colored, publishing-empire flames, where, you ask, will I go for gratuitous Crimson self-congratulation? How will I keep track of the 100 most glorious humans in existence, 02138's annual Harvard 100, guide to the 100 most annoying— er, influential— Harvard grads each year? Crunched between ads for diamond rings and pictures of pretty boys, the plea insists nominees be "famous or infamous, celebrated or unknown." Since 02138's final edition of the Harvard 100, now out in clunky digital form only, frankly praises the same generic 100 Harvard heroes, IvyGate has compiled a little addendum (including one re-write).  No failure can spoil our fun.

Past mentions in 02138's Harvard 100 include the usual Bill's, Al's, and Baracks's while their 2008 version also feature somebody named Zuckerberg.  But how could we forget about the '93 grad who embezzled $100K from children with cancer? Or the Louisiana senator with a thing for adult diapers and whores? Been wondering what happened to JTT? (God knows we have.) Feast on the Rest of the Best, starting with the obvious:

1. Ted "Unabomber" Kaczynski '62

Well, here was an easy choice for inclusion. This boy genius got his fat envelope from Harvard College at the ripe age of 15 and had earned a spot on the faculty of Cal Berkeley by age 25. Some trace his famous beliefs into the evil of science back to the days when he was subject to cruel psychological experiments (cum electrodes, glaring spotlights, and CIA sponsorship). Over a span of nearly two decades, Kaczynski sent a total 16 pipe bombs, injuring 23 and killing three, from his handbuilt cabin in Montana. In 1995, Penthouse magazine published the famous 35,000 word paper Industrial Society and Its Future (better known as the “Unabomber Manifesto”), which aided in his eventual capture and conviction. Today, the Harvard building where Koczynski began his high education houses the college’s expository-writing program. Coincidence?

Nine more scourges to Harvard's name, after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

The final edition of 02138 came out yesterday wrapped in cyber-cellophane only. The digital magazine format, once regarded as the way of the future, looks like the still-bleeding scars of the failed elitist revolution. Now, pretentious readers across the world must once again retreat to the “Class Notes and Obituaries” section of that other alumni magazine for updates on the cronies.

As promised, the third and penultimate edition of the Harvard 100 List occupies the cover spot. Though we’ve been (very) quick to hate this list in the past, this year’s 100 gleams with an appropriately oak-paneled, vintage facelift from the art department. And actually, it looks pretty suave. If there’s anything better than old men’s magazine ads for polyester pants, it’s a classic rendering of Mark Zuckerberg as Narfle the Garthok.

For any 02138 faithfuls who feared that the editors might go rogue and deviate from the generic self-congratulatory tone of years past by actually getting creative with the list, don’t worry. They didn’t. Barack Obama is number one—up three spots. Bill Gates is number eight—down three spots. 02138 did manage to thank Hulu founder Jason Killar for destroying students’ finals period productivity for the foreseeable future—he’s number 100. Don’t forget to gape at the pretty ironic and frankly tasteless sidebar gawking at former listers who’ve died (pg. 54, after the jump).

[Ed: The flowchart on page 64, demonstrating how a shadowy cabal of Harvard Men brokered and perpetuate the Iraq War is of note, too. —Maureen]

Join the 02138 staff for some good old-fashioned Ivy League self-pity after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

I guess we can close down our website, now, because #1 source of all things ridiculous in the Ivy League, that gloriously self-congratulatory glossy 02138, is folding! Mere months ago Manhattan Media acquired the Crimsonphilic alumni rag, heralding it as the foundation of their new "Ivy League Media" division. And now they're killing it. Daily Intel has Manhattan's fold-nouncement memo, which explains that, though everyone at 02138 was doing an A+ job,

...the current economic environment has made it too difficult to proceed at this time. While Manhattan Media, and its financial backer Isis Venture Partners, are committed to long-term growth capital, the funds needed to execute AMN's strategic vision would by necessity have grown significantly and beyond the company's risk/return profile.

The latest issue will lurk around 02138's website for a while, the ghost of Media Past. Happily (delusionally?) the website shows no signs of distress, with its usual assortment of Aaron Sorkin puff pieces floating around the homepage.

Harvard alum mag 02138 is likely clocking record-breaking traffic this week, now that their profile of Harvard "power couple" Eliot Spitzer and Silda Wall (where Wall admits to never spending time with her husband, and Spitzer pretends he's never worn makeup before) has become one long, foregone punchline. From power couple to criminally perverse politico — oh, what a difference two years can make!

Though all but one of 02138's "power couples" are technically still intact, Eliot and Silda are far from alone in their public humiliation. Being labeled a "power couple," it seems, is the latest relationship kiss of death, on par with 20-something hipsters getting matching tattoos, or meeting your mate on "The Bachelor." And if you expand the "power couple" list to include 02138's "power exes," a sordid soap opera unfolds, featuring closeted football players, heroin-addled artists, even a contestant from America's Next Top Model!

After the jump: Your guide to the Ivy League's most doomed.

Read the rest of this entry »

02138, which won the Pulitzer Prize last year for intrepid journalism in the Field of Writing About Harvard, has just released its second annual list of Harvard's 100 most influential alumni. Can you name all twelve women? (Hint: don't forget Benazir Bhutto.)

Like all lists of this sort, it comes packaged with a poorly edited preface full of stilted phrases ("in the catbrid seat"), inane platitudes ("With so much at stake in the coming year, there's a lot to influence"), and a groping desperation to say something meaningful about what is basically a self-satisfied exercise in name-dropping ("The Supreme Court has shifted ideologically, and the struggle for creating and undoing precedents is fierce.")

The usual suspects are to be found on the list -- financiers (Lloyd Blankfein, Stephen Schwartzman, Henry Paulson), media-barons (Jared Kushner, Mortimer Zuckerman, Sumner Redstone, Jeff Zucker), like a million politicians, and pretty much the entire Supreme Court. And there are a few Harvard is probably not so thrilled about (George Bush, Alberto Gonzales).

Other choices are just baffling -- Frank Rich, really? B.J. Novak? And didn't Bill Gates drop out? But most of all, is Al Gore in fact the most influential Harvard grad today? There's just something sad about that. Discuss amongst yourselves.

After the jump: the list in full.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you read this blog with any regularity, you know it's been a constant struggle to criticize 02138, a magazine we know we should hate but somehow, inexplicably (well, sometimes explicably), can't. What we can say, thanks to this spectacular item from Boston's Weekly Dig, is that 1) 02138 is not a happy place to be right now, and 2) it will be moving its unhappy ass to the unhappiness capital of the world: Manhattan.

The real juice, though, is on the editorial end. Dig invokes the "world of carnage" that is the magazine's masthead, which has already lost two executive editors and an editorial director, with a managing editor and two editors-at-large soon to peace. The strategy, a source tells them, "is to make it so ridiculously unhospitable that people quit -- they're never fired."

Dig's coup of coups is a leaked editorial memo outlining ways to bring in more advertising without compromising editorial autonomy. Among those uncompromising ideas:

"Make as many photo shoots as possible fashion shoots. Let subjects know that readers will be very interested in their fashion, jewelry, accessory choices or, preferably, dress them. Whether or not we dress them, clothes should be credited. Next list [of influential Harvardians?-Ed.] should be shot this way."

"Profiles through the lens of certain products: The last five electronics gadgets Jim Fallows bought to stay in touch from China, whats in Meg Whitmans briefcase as far as electronic devices, what are the last 10 wines Jen Rubell served at dinner parties; what is on Marisa Noel Browns holiday gift list, Darren Aronofskys ten rules for flying on his private jet."

And then this apocalyptic vision:

"Cover a ridiculous or interesting wedding, first birthday party, retirement party or funeral in every issue. Offer alums incentives to alert us to such events (02138 onesies for new legacy babies)"

Is it our birthday? Feels like it. Thanks, Dig.

02138, the Harvard magazine we're pretty much obligated to hate -- yet unaccountably haven't -- has been quiet lately. The world's most entitled ZIP code put out a second issue, at which we could only bear to glance; the features are okay, sure, but it's becoming increasingly clear that reading each edition is going to be a chore: it really is, on every single page, all about, only about, Harvard. (Even we have our limits.) As for the front-of-the-book, if we wanted to read minimum-effort, thinly-punchlined items about Harvard, we'd read, you know, us.

What happened? Wasn't 02138 supposed to be some kind of runaway success under "extreme talent in the extreme" editor Bom Kim? Didn't the launch issue fairly sweat money, with ads from Maybach?

A clue to the mag's fortunes: the blogs section at 02138mag.com, which launched with seven titles but right now is about as lively as Barbaro. Among the graveyard:

• Annotator: updated once since October
• Scenes: June 8, July 12, and Sept. 20
• Dicta, "A Harvard Blawg": only once, Aug. 28

That's some impressive 21st-century media energy, guys. An 02138 spokesflack gamely tried to tell us that no, they updated three times this week. But that's just Active Duty, an odd military blog that somehow endures. The other six are dark.

"Office"-o-philia seems to be running high these days. It's a Beckett-worthy meditation on modern drudgery. It transcends moldy sitcom formulae. It is the best, ultimate, super-dee-dooperest television program ever forever period.

Fine. But with all this heavy breathing, how come no one has made the (to us at least) blindingly obvious comparison to the Ivy League? Think about it. It's where tired, fleshy folk marinate for years on end. Where the most prized skill is the evasion of work. Where leaders entertain delusions of grandeur, only to be mocked out of earshot. Where desperation mixed with bewilderment breeds ill-fated romance. Sound familiar?

This can't be coincidence -- and it turns out it's not. Producer Greg Daniels? Harvard '85. Boyishly huggable John Krasinski, who plays Jim? Brown '02. Then there's B.J. Novak, half-writer, half-actor, all Harvard ('01). Don't forget Mindy Kaling, Dartmouth '01, and Rashida Jones, Harvard '97, who graced the inaugural cover of 02138. It's like an actual depressing Ivy-littered corporate firm, except, you know, making fun of that.

Thankfully, "The Office" hasn't become the insufferable weekly pummeling of Ivy references that is "The Simpsons." But they do indulge here and there. Andy Bernard, the Ed Helms character who went to Cornell, bragged in one episode that he "never studied, got drunk every night, and still graduated in four years." Maybe we were too hard on the commenters if Cornell-bashing has made it to prime time.

After crashing 02138's launch parties in New York and Boston, we knew we had to complete the trilogy in Washington. We weren't angry at ourselves for giving favorable coverage to the first two -- just disappointed, and you know that always hurts worse. So we went in determined to hate it. Sigh. We tried.

When David Bradley, owner of 02138 and another rag, invites you to party at his home, you don't ask questions. A sampling of the questions we didn't ask: "Is Bradley Manor visible from space?" "Where did those two Maybachs in your driveway come from?" "How would one go about being you?"

The house -- the former Cuban embassy, we hear -- is a secular materialist's conception of heaven: Impressionist paintings. Statuary. Mirrors, everywhere. A chandelier in the kitchen. Wood-paneled bookshelves. Clocks on every other wall. Couches in the kitchen. Ivy spilling out of massive stone-carved furnishings. A roaring fireplace in the kitchen.

As we soaked it all in, the magazine brass shushed the room and told everyone the evening's guests had collectively clocked 325 years at Harvard -- that's, like, 569 in Cornell years! Editor Bom Kim then took a moment to lie with a straight face that this crowd, compared to the New York and Boston launch parties, was way better-looking.

Only two members of the Harvard 100 showed up: Grover Norquist and Walter Isaacson. We were a little disappointed, considering four of the top five live in DC. (That, and we were totally planning to shave one side of Ben Bernanke's face once he'd passed out). As for the rest of the crowd, thank God for name tags.

On the way out, gift bag in hand (We'd been meaning to read The Namesake! They're mind-readers!), we gave in and climbed behind the wheel of one of the two Maybachs. They weren't there to be driven; only felt. And as we sat there, petting the hand-stitched upholstery and making quiet vroom noises for a good two minutes, it occurred to us: This is what it feels like to be David Bradley.

We're so disappointed.

For weeks now we've been unable to sleep, horrified that our account of crashing the 02138launch party didn't hate enough on the widely-considered-obnoxious magazine. SexandtheIvy.com offered to cover the mag's Boston launch for us, and we had our fingers crossed that she would better resist the open bar and write something scathing -- or at least bed one of the staffers. Alas. Her dispatch:

When the Head of the Charles Regatta comes around, Harvard locks down.

But 02138 would hear nothing of that last night. While its alma mater slept in, the new magazine dared to party. Hosted at Via Matta (owner: HBS grad), the Boston launch event saw no celebrity appearances, though alumni did abound. With a slew of Harvard affiliates from almost every school and year, the only demographic that could be pegged down were the "fallen type-As." That is, those who prefer the company of anonymous fellow alumni to interaction with normal human beings.

No sightings of The Harvard 100, but one guest did purport to be number 101. He also claimed aspirations to his own publication, tentatively named after his mother, Bertha. I'd get the p.r. people working on that title if I was him.

"Do they teach awkwardness at Harvard, or do we just come this way?" I asked my companion after a forced conversation with an alum several generations removed. And here I thought Ivy League social disability was a recent development.

We spent the remainder of the evening downing mysteriously weak drinks and talking to the only other normal people in the room (relatively speaking). We met the acquaintance of pg. 20's Republican "policy doctor" Lanhee Chen and introduced ourselves to three chicly dressed, refereshingly amiable staffers. Then we found out that two were Princeton-educated, the other a University of Wisconsin grad. That's gotta explain it.

When the clock struck 9 p.m., we took a look around. Via Matta was, by now, a few guests short of a crowd. I thought the undergraduate social scene was lacking, but is this what life holds for us as alums?

Perhaps next week's launch event in D.C. will be more hopping, but for the rest of the evening, I retreated to a more surefire good time: Happy hour at the Crimson.