Barry Diller shows the children his Zwinky Cuties
At an oh-so-pink party in Times Square yesterday — one stuffed with enough cupcakes to Google's Marissa Mayer proud — IAC launched a virtual world for girls aged 6 to 12, calling it Zwinky Cuties. Barry Diller presided and I captured the bizarre affair in video.Zwinky Cuties is free to enter, but little girls who want to dress their avatars in the latest fashions will need to pony up $5.99 a month. Worry about turning our children into consumer drones, but don't worry about the pedos, says IAC exec John Park. Zwinky Cuties is "entirely safe and really designed for young girls," he says. Does Mr. Park have a Zwinky? "I do. He looks twenty years younger." Park would not show his Zwinky to us. IAC CEO Barry Diller, who showed up to the event and made a speech to press and a crowd of bored IAC spawn, said: "I guess it would be clear that I do not qualify to join Zwinky Cuties or if I did I would probably be arrested." Then Disney's latest 20-something pop star took the stage, said she was proud to be a role model, and began to sing a song to the children about a cute, but shy boy who hangs out by his locker. Men in sports jerseys stopped and stared in through the studio's windows. They waved and took pictures with their cell phones.