In a juicy profile, New Yorker's Rebecca Mead goes inside the behemoth teen taste-maker Alloy, a sort of sinister junior Clear Channel that's responsible for much of the YA bestseller list, including the multimedia Gossip Girl and Traveling Pants juggernauts and, more lately, The Vampire Diaries. And do we ever see the pink, undead, bratty sausage being made! Here's how Mead describes the efficient hit-factory:

[Alloy] pack-ges about thirty novels a year for publishers, and also generates television shows and a growing number of ideas for featurefilms. In order to do all this, Alloy has developed a process with an industrial level of efficiency. Ideas are typically suggested in weekly development meetings and, if they gain the approval of Morgenstein and Bank, are fleshed out into a short summary by an editor. A writer is asked to create a sample chapter on spec; if Alloy executives are happy with the sample, they put her (or, on occasion, him) on contract. The writer hashes out a plot with Bank, one or two other editors, and Sara Shandler, Alloy's editorial director-an alumnus of Seventeen, who, at the age of nineteen, put together the anthology "Ophelia Speaks".

It's always kind of creepy to see unabashed marketing at work, and especially when it's aimed at an impressionable age-group, however lucrative. Of course, cash-in teen-lit has a long pseudonomynous history, from Nancy Drew to Sweet Valley. And the Alloy execs would just say they're giving kids what they want. One Alloy exec defends it thusly: "Editors and publishers can get hung up on what's good for kids...At Alloy, they always think first about what kids want to read." Which, of course, isn't always - or indeed, ever - an improving tract. And the idea that the body of literature informs and shapes said nascent tastes, paving the way for a lifetime of dutiful buying - well, that's conveniently ignored. Yes, kids want candy and Easy-Mac: because they've seen ads designed to attract them. Not because it's what's best for their development, or some genetic imperative of childhood.

Sure, some of the series sound really interesting (I really want to read the second "Wish" book that they map out in the piece), and the Alloy execs say we're moving away, culturally, from the excess of "brat lit" into Twilit territory because "more serious, angsty literature is where girls are right now. Morbid, dead-girl lit." And some of the book are even of historical interest! Mead mentions a new novel about
"a boy who acquires superhuman powers after being tortured during the Civil War." Then there's the new gilded-age Gossip-Girl-esque series, the cover image of which Mead describes:

The result is a look that no woman in the Gilded Age would have been immodest enough to wear beyond the boudoir or the brothel, though the Alloy team felt that the sartorial anachronism was entirely forgivable (much like the heroine's request for "ciggies"-slang that would take another sixty years to emerge). "Girls today would not relate to the more severe necklines and covered arms and horrible hair styles that girls were wearing at the time," Sara Shandler says. "We tried to do the imaginary-princess version." Or, as one of the publishers competing for the book described the gown, "the ultimate fuck-me prom dress."

And there, of course, is the rub. There's a continuing belief that kids can't relate to anything unlike themselves. Richer versions of themselves, 19th Century versions of themselves, maybe magic versions of themselves - but the feeling seems to be that kids are such incredible narcissists that any truly expanded horizons are more than they can handle. And the problem, of course, is that it's self-fulfilling. The other day I passed a poster at the bus stop bearing a still from the new Where The Wild Things Are movie. "Read," it ordered - seemingly without irony. Alloy would totally agree.

The Gossip Mill [New Yorker]

In his op-ed piece, titled "I married an Ascham bully," Sheehan begins by briefly describing a recent cyberbullying scandal that occurred at a New South Wales school:

Several teenagers at an elite Sydney girls school are coming to terms with the full magnitude of their public betrayal via the internet. Where to begin? One has had her genitalia discussed in anatomical detail. Another has had her face likened to a koala's. A third has learnt that her circle of friends is not friendly at all: "She thinks she's best friends with lots of people but they actually hate her."

As a result of the incident, two girls have left the school in disgrace. School administrators have expressed their distress over the recent trend of spreading rumors via social networking websites like Myspace and Facebook. One mother has come forward, saying that her daughter, a recent graduate, also suffered from bullying while she was at Ascham. "When my daughter was there it was text messaging," she said.

But who is to blame for the cruelty of these students? Certainly not the girls themselves. Sheehan places the blame squarely on the internet, where gossip spreads like "a disease." He writes,

Gossip has become even bigger than porn on the internet. Much bigger. Facebook is largely gossip. So are the other big social networking sites. Millions of eyeballs also go to gossip sites like Go Fug Yourself, devoted to fashion and celebrity putdowns. (The terms "fug" and "fugly" are short for f—-ing ugly, though the authors pretend it stands for fantastically ugly). Or PerezHilton.com, which bills itself as "Hollywood's most hated website", or The Superficial (Because You're Ugly), or Dlisted (Be Very Afraid), or TMZ.com (Careful Who You're Kissing), or Pink is the New Blog (Everybody's Business Is My Business), or Jezebel (Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women, Without Airbrushing). All have large followings among young women.

While we don't want to deny that the internet does provide a terrible platform for certain types of cruelty, Sheehan's piece is annoying for several reasons (and not just because he mentions this site). Sheehan seems to assume that this is something only girls do, that this kind of cruel body snarking and malicious gossip is somehow unique to the female gender. He does not mention that several of the websites he include are run or staffed by men (PerezHilton, Dlisted, The Superficial). When he does mention Perez Hilton, it is to mock him for being a "failed actor and a failed journalist." Sheehan ends his argument with a rather exaggeratedly dire view of the future:

Because the internet is so unfiltered and so vast, it has become a far more accurate reflection of the human condition than the traditional mass media. The self-portrait that has emerged is not flattering. The explosion in productivity, transparency, community and knowledge has been accompanied by largely unfettered pettiness, vituperation and schadenfreude. This is the encompassing public medium of the young. This is their stage and their minefield.

This may have been an interesting critique at one point, but I can't help but feel like we've heard this all before. Like people in the workplace, high school kids have always been cruel: the internet has just provided them with a new platform for spewing their hatred. Maybe instead of pointing fingers and trying to identify the culprit — when clearly, there is no one source of the bullying virus, to borrow Sheehan's metaphor — we should all focus our energies on working to provide alternative ways to talk about young women.

I Married An Ascham Bully [Sydney Morning Herald]

Earlier: Female "Bullies" At Work: What Are These Pieces Really Trying To Say?

[Image via Gossip Girl official website]

According to Nicole Hess, who authored the study, participants were more likely to trash talk competitors when raises or promotions were at stake. The trash talking was lowered, however, when the competitor had an "ally" in the company, as having a friend "in the know" helps targets of gossip thwart vicious attacks. Both sexes gossip equally, says Hess, but according to Kate Wong of Scientific American, "women more often than men find themselves in situations in which gossiping pays off."

In other words, having a friend at work can help you fight off vicious rumors and attempts to destroy your reputation. It's hard for your competitors to tear you down when there are friendly voices refuting the misinformation they're attempting to spread. Unless you're friends with Regina George, and then you should probably start looking for another job. Especially if your job entails trying to make "fetch" happen. It's NOT going to happen.

Pssst: Gossip Hurts—But Friends Can Protect You From The Worst Of It [Scientific American]

"Would I be able to play Pygmalion with Taylor Momsen ... ? Well S.B. didn't get off to a good start. A clothing rack of red-carpet regulars failed to capture Taylor's attention."I'm an individualist" she said dodging every de rigeur dress shape (sack, trapeze, bubble be damned!). Oh dear S.B. completely misjudged the situation. This was no Eliza Doolittle in need of Henry Higgins. "I have two favorite pairs of Miu Miu shoes—both with silver sparkles," she exclaimed. "I'm kind of out there." Then S.B. would go the distance. Several fittings and umpteen test Polaroids later, we had a winner: a draped Doo.Ri jersey dress. Never mind that Taylor hadn't heard of the New York-based designer before."