November 17, 2006
Gawker: Suddenly Less BrownHumor
Nick Denton’s flagship timesuck Gawker said “pinne kannam” to their perma-intern Neel Shah today (Thanks, Amit)— wait, you totally didn’t even know they HAD a brown intern, did you? What’s that? We are your timesuck of choice? Awww. That kind of loyalty is worth a solid kundi-grab at the next meetup, kids.
It’s so hard to see the little ones grow up and take wing; you nurture them, tutor them in the ways of righteousness, and then send them out into the big, scary world, hoping that the values you’ve imbued somehow help them through life’s most trying tasks, specifically, working for Maer Roshan. As Eat the Press reports, our own Intern Neel (whose tenure here at Gawker exceeds that of the four current editors combined) has taken the position of Assistant Editor at Radar.[link]
See? Told you he was the perma-intern.
Neel, whose party dispatches were legendary and who elicits a flood of “Is he single?” e-mails to the tip line each time we print his photograph, will write front of the book stuff for the magazine (remember, there’s going to be a magazine component) and Fresh Intelligence work for the website. Sorry as we are to see him go, we’re thrilled for him, and we look forward to reading his work in the two issues of Radar they put out before the inevitable loss of funding. Congratulations, kiddo.[link]
Is he single? The comments section to the post quoted above had certain gawker stalkers wondering if he was teh gay. Whichever way he plays, he is a little bit of brown adorable, yessiree Babu.
Gentlewomen (and teh gays), start your matrimonial engines— he’s got the following standard-issue brown-privileged background, according to this blurb which I lifted from a Gawker post on Kaavya, which used Neel’s insights to provide an insider view in to her plagiarism fustercluck:
Gawker Intern Neel Shah thinks he understands. Hailing from picturesque Port Jefferson, Long Island, Neel is a first generation Indian-American who took the SATs in 7th grade, went to the same dorky summer program at Johns Hopkins as Viswanathan, and recently graduated from Dartmouth. His father is a doctor, his family drives a Range Rover, and he played tennis in high school. In some small way, Neel knows where Kaavya’s coming from. His culturally specific analysis of her hell and humiliation follows.[link]
One tiny problem with his analysis, if the part I’m about to call out is actually his— he needs to get his geography sorted:
Whatever dubious subcontinental wunderkind Kaavya Viswanathan did write, didn’t write, had ghost-written, cribbed, subconsciously borrowed, telepathically stole, or else was brainwashed into doing by a bunch of Pakistanis hell-bent on subverting India’s credibility in the burgeoning Southeast Asian chick-lit genre, at least one thing is clear: shit like this is the reason brown kids should stick to quantitative math and organic chemistry. Ms. Viswanathan, after all, had all the hallmarks of future i-banker or doctor.[link]
Uh…I am brown and I never took chemistry, not even in high school (w00t Earth Science!); let’s not discuss the relationship I have with Math, since it involves a story about an angry nun and a flying textbook. Hmmm…no wonder I am not a rich and over-worked I-banker/MD. Anyway, I await the inevitable “I totally know him! My cousin’s Uncle’s kids were in the same Montessori class as him!”-comments from you lot, since every brown person in Amreeka is connected to another via two degrees or less. The next time you see your cousin’s Uncle’s kid, tell them to convey our heartiest Congratulations to Neel. Well-done.
anna on November 17, 2006 03:38 PM in Humor · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Hailing from picturesque Port Jefferson
Damn - family's got $$$.
so is he single?
Dude, ask them:
he loox like that guy on lost. not the brown one. the guy from party of 5.
razib - i didn't notice until you said it, but he totally does! i'm pretty much over jack on lost, but brown!jack brings new possibilities of crushin'
Wow, I thought it was a requirement everywhere in order to graduate from H.S. But, that's ok - chemistry didn't make sense to me until i took organic, and that was after college.
umm ... kinda.
anna,
neel is my cousin.
-wlp alum
I see you at:
Will raise to:
I am brown. From Desh. And completely bypassed science and math.
Anna,
I'm honored you decided to document my move from one low-paying gig to the next on this here blog. Please send all dating requests to my mom. She's got total empty nest syndrome now that the kids are gone, and would no doubt enjoy the project.
-neel
Port Jefferson is where its at if you want to get away from anything of color.
People. Brown and raised in Pakistan, living there now, and double-majored in English and Medieval Studies. I still hear muttering that sounds suspiciously like "For this we sent him to college" or "But he already KNOWS English, why did he have to study it?" I will see your horror stories of math and chem, and raise you a physics lab experiment in which it was demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt that putting me in the same room as a set of magnets and an electricity transformer was just a recipe for disaster.
On a side note, I'm trying to figure out if I'd do Neel or not. The jury's going to have to return on this one.
raised in pakistan? where'd you lose your sense of virtue & chastity? shameful. we're assimilating the worst habits of the whites.
Unplug oscilloscope or other electrical equipment in the lab. Tie wire between the two prongs of the plug. Leave it unplugged and go relax in a corner.
You can have my isolation. You can have the hate it brings.
Isn't all math quantitative?
Brother Sin. I fold. You win.
Yes, I was a Humanities major.
(A note for you mullahs and other naive tenderfoot types... "Humanities" is gora lingo for "smoking pot and playing Dungeons & Dragons.")
yeah, i've also noticed people using "south asian" and "south east asian" interchangibly, even though i had though thought "south east asian" referred to vietname, malasia and thereabouts...
In Canada, we grew up differentiating between East Indian and West Indians, because the Westies were from the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. If you were East Indian with darker skin, you'd make a point of saying East Indian so people wouldn't confuse you as an islander.
I think we already heard from Neel's uncle in that Gawker bit. Uncle Tom was pretty damn clear, I'd say...
Mmmmm. He is yummy.
I will second that
ridonkulous.
More power to you. I did roughly the same. We need brown representation in ALL areas:)
Whoa, hold on. I can ask his mom if she'd be OK with us going out? SWEET!
I think it took me almost five tries to get through the article. Anna, your writing was top notch as usual. It was just the picture. Rather distracting. But, Sin - I won't fight you for this one.
So wait..Is he gay? If not..Im Indian.. I understand "Pinne Kanaam", I am First generation Indian/American with a "wheatish complexion,"