getting-on-the-list

The Publicist Party Code: "Pretty Unimportant People Over Ugly Unimportant People"

Emily Gould · 10/19/07 03:30PM

It was freshman year of college and I'd found myself in a fratboy's bedroom, as we all did at some point. Suddenly, I spied a copy of the facebook of incoming freshmen—they used to be made of paper, did you know?—and before the room's occupant could snatch it from my hands, I was flipping through what turned out to be a complicatedly coded document. Some photos of girls were circled in yellow highlighter, some in blue. Some were both yellow and blue. Some girls' photos had big Xs through them! "What's this about?" I asked Mr. Psi Upsilon. "Oh, uh... that's how we decide who to invite to parties. Heh," he admitted. I was thinking about this the other day when an invite list for a fancy party somehow fell into my inbox, and each name had coded entries like: "[Starry McTvstarlet] UNDER30/CUTE/ONAIR/300/[Starlet] BFriend" and [Modelly McExwife] 300/600/LI/MODEL/FASHION/LITERARY. Whoa! Was this standard industry practice? And what did the codes mean?