A Robespierre of the internet
August 7, 2009 6:00 AM Subscribe
The coolest entrepreneur in the coolest part of the coolest city in the world right now is walking towards me, but you wouldn’t know it. Meet Blaise Bellville the proprietor of Platform.
He looks well weapon. Via Lost In Showbiz.
He looks well weapon. Via Lost In Showbiz.
Oh great. Another posho taking control of British culture. Just what we need. I can haz entitlement.
posted by treblekicker at 6:14 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by treblekicker at 6:14 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
Pfft.
posted by Happy Dave at 6:18 AM on August 7, 2009
posted by Happy Dave at 6:18 AM on August 7, 2009
Also, his 'website' is an assault on the eyeballs. It's like Myspace gone to seed.
posted by Happy Dave at 6:23 AM on August 7, 2009
posted by Happy Dave at 6:23 AM on August 7, 2009
You owe me a coke.
posted by Happy Dave at 6:23 AM on August 7, 2009
posted by Happy Dave at 6:23 AM on August 7, 2009
The coolest entrepreneur in the coolest part of the coolest city in the world
You keep using that word...
posted by newmoistness at 6:24 AM on August 7, 2009 [13 favorites]
You keep using that word...
posted by newmoistness at 6:24 AM on August 7, 2009 [13 favorites]
How vapid. Somebody call me when the cocaine-and-porsche-wreckage starts.
posted by rokusan at 6:27 AM on August 7, 2009 [3 favorites]
posted by rokusan at 6:27 AM on August 7, 2009 [3 favorites]
The coolest entrepreneur in the coolest part of the coolest city in the world
I'm trying to figure out where in South Philly they took that photo...
posted by Mister_A at 6:29 AM on August 7, 2009 [5 favorites]
I'm trying to figure out where in South Philly they took that photo...
posted by Mister_A at 6:29 AM on August 7, 2009 [5 favorites]
shit article in a shit paper about a shithead.
posted by channel-1- at 6:36 AM on August 7, 2009 [4 favorites]
posted by channel-1- at 6:36 AM on August 7, 2009 [4 favorites]
Speaking of cocaine and Philly, I was reminded of this (via Projects).
posted by exogenous at 6:44 AM on August 7, 2009
posted by exogenous at 6:44 AM on August 7, 2009
My life is nothing like that. I need to buy some product, stat.
posted by seanyboy at 6:46 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by seanyboy at 6:46 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
Five bucks says that he doesn't know what a "Robespierre" is.
posted by mhoye at 6:54 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 6:54 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
I'd be happier about the world if this guy turned out to be a viral for series 2 of Nathan Barley.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 6:57 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 6:57 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
A picture worth a thousand words, all of them "wanker".
posted by Artw at 6:59 AM on August 7, 2009 [14 favorites]
posted by Artw at 6:59 AM on August 7, 2009 [14 favorites]
I guess on some level I'm just glad he isn't the new Doctor Who.
posted by Artw at 7:13 AM on August 7, 2009 [9 favorites]
posted by Artw at 7:13 AM on August 7, 2009 [9 favorites]
You owe me some coke.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 7:15 AM on August 7, 2009
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 7:15 AM on August 7, 2009
If I'd paid to read this as Rupert Murdoch thinks I should, I'd have demanded my money back.
posted by rhymer at 7:16 AM on August 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by rhymer at 7:16 AM on August 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
London is the coolest city on the planet? Are you kidding me? London isn't even the coolest city in Western Europe.
I was gonna say "isn't even the coolest city in the UK" ... but it probably is. But give me a break.
posted by taumeson at 7:29 AM on August 7, 2009
I was gonna say "isn't even the coolest city in the UK" ... but it probably is. But give me a break.
posted by taumeson at 7:29 AM on August 7, 2009
Be it known that on this, the 7th day of August in the year of our Lord two-thousand and nine, a duly constituted and legal assembly of the right honourable gentlemen and ladies of the Meta-Filtre do hereby declare that one Blaise Bellville, proprietor of scandal and nipples, is most likely a douche, now and in perpetuity.
posted by Mister_A at 7:39 AM on August 7, 2009 [5 favorites]
posted by Mister_A at 7:39 AM on August 7, 2009 [5 favorites]
I clicked through to Platform and...uh...
...the pictures and...the...boxes and...the...um...uh...
I mean, it's hip, right? I haven't been hip ever, and long passed the age where I care if I can even identify hip, but all the...things...piled on top of one another...in a jumble...
*weeps*
posted by xingcat at 7:53 AM on August 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
...the pictures and...the...boxes and...the...um...uh...
I mean, it's hip, right? I haven't been hip ever, and long passed the age where I care if I can even identify hip, but all the...things...piled on top of one another...in a jumble...
*weeps*
posted by xingcat at 7:53 AM on August 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
Then he says to the photographer, with calm authority: “Could we do this quickly because I don’t have long?” The photographer looks rather impressed (and he is, he calls me afterwards wanting to know more about “that guy I photographed today”.)
I'm guessing that the word the photographer actually used wasn't "guy".
posted by ook at 8:02 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
I'm guessing that the word the photographer actually used wasn't "guy".
posted by ook at 8:02 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
...he says to the photographer, with calm authority: “Could we do this quickly because I don’t have long?” The photographer looks rather impressed...
Oooh. That is impressive.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:09 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
Oooh. That is impressive.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:09 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
I had to post without previewing because I didn't have long.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:12 AM on August 7, 2009 [3 favorites]
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:12 AM on August 7, 2009 [3 favorites]
Wow. That photo is a perfect storm of douchebaggery. Gah! He's popping his collar! Hang onto something!!!
posted by brundlefly at 8:13 AM on August 7, 2009 [4 favorites]
posted by brundlefly at 8:13 AM on August 7, 2009 [4 favorites]
The coolest entrepreneur in the coolest part of the coolest city in the world
Satire? Hard to tell b/c it wasn't funny ...
posted by mrgrimm at 8:24 AM on August 7, 2009
Satire? Hard to tell b/c it wasn't funny ...
posted by mrgrimm at 8:24 AM on August 7, 2009
The site looks like if someone tried to copy Vice Magazine on a Tumblr. Right down to the American Apparel girls. But evey generation needs its Malcolm McLaren. Too bad on Y that this one's theres.
posted by Diablevert at 8:44 AM on August 7, 2009
posted by Diablevert at 8:44 AM on August 7, 2009
Rokusan Somebody call me when the cocaine-and-porsche-wreckage starts.
Sounds a lot like the coke has already started. What a tool.
posted by WPW at 8:49 AM on August 7, 2009
Sounds a lot like the coke has already started. What a tool.
posted by WPW at 8:49 AM on August 7, 2009
My eyes asplode.
posted by jeffamaphone at 9:03 AM on August 7, 2009
posted by jeffamaphone at 9:03 AM on August 7, 2009
Rights and entrepreneurs are not clearly part of the walk my cool cool cool of the city in the world
posted by regicide is good for you at 9:10 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by regicide is good for you at 9:10 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
Also, you don't need to be out of your 20s to know that illiterate agglomeration of eye-noise is a shite magazine.
posted by regicide is good for you at 9:11 AM on August 7, 2009
posted by regicide is good for you at 9:11 AM on August 7, 2009
The awesomest bits:
Already, apparently, you’re considered “not worthy” if you don’t have a main job and a sideline in the form of a regular DJ gig (Bellville DJs) or a fashion label or a popular blog, or all three. On top of that, that sideline must also be significant enough to make your name “Googleable”.
Presumably your main job hasd to be running an internet magazine or something and not working down a steel mill...
He's certainly going to be googleable as something.
As far as I can tell, Bellville doesn’t have any outstanding skills beyond entrepreneurial smart, uncommon charm and an extraordinary drive. He isn’t even street — in fact, he’s posh.
Hugetastically suprising!
At Marlborough College — paid for from a trust set up before his birth — he found ways of having the same pocket money as his peers. One ruse, at 13, had him renting a friend’s CD burner for £15 a week, and paying two friends to pirate and distribute CDs, with him taking the hundreds of pounds in profits every week, until his housemaster stopped it (“They were surprisingly antibusiness”).
Woo-hoo! Cory Doctrow! Copy Fighter!
posted by Artw at 9:14 AM on August 7, 2009
Already, apparently, you’re considered “not worthy” if you don’t have a main job and a sideline in the form of a regular DJ gig (Bellville DJs) or a fashion label or a popular blog, or all three. On top of that, that sideline must also be significant enough to make your name “Googleable”.
Presumably your main job hasd to be running an internet magazine or something and not working down a steel mill...
He's certainly going to be googleable as something.
As far as I can tell, Bellville doesn’t have any outstanding skills beyond entrepreneurial smart, uncommon charm and an extraordinary drive. He isn’t even street — in fact, he’s posh.
Hugetastically suprising!
At Marlborough College — paid for from a trust set up before his birth — he found ways of having the same pocket money as his peers. One ruse, at 13, had him renting a friend’s CD burner for £15 a week, and paying two friends to pirate and distribute CDs, with him taking the hundreds of pounds in profits every week, until his housemaster stopped it (“They were surprisingly antibusiness”).
Woo-hoo! Cory Doctrow! Copy Fighter!
posted by Artw at 9:14 AM on August 7, 2009
An aside:
Both newspapers and local television stations write their copy as though they are unaware that there are satellites and internets. I've lived in 5 different States (as in signed a lease and gotten mail) and the newspapers and local broadcasts all have some version of how right here is the greatest place on earth.
It's like they all work for Mike Damone.
posted by vapidave at 9:24 AM on August 7, 2009
Both newspapers and local television stations write their copy as though they are unaware that there are satellites and internets. I've lived in 5 different States (as in signed a lease and gotten mail) and the newspapers and local broadcasts all have some version of how right here is the greatest place on earth.
It's like they all work for Mike Damone.
posted by vapidave at 9:24 AM on August 7, 2009
My fave:
Another, at 15 — selling whistles costing 3p on eBay for £2 a pop at the Stop the War march — earned him more than £1,000 in one day.
Yeah, let's rip off the smelly hippies, capitalism rules... Thatch is our god!
Ahem.. esp when set against this comment on the Lost in Showbiz post that let me to this particular pot of gold...
I do take comfort in one aspect of this - if the Stop The War march he sold the whistles at is the famous one where 2m people were ignored over Iraq, then I am better at remembering my own age than he is. After all, the piece says he, like me, is now 24, but whilst he was '15' at the parade (again according to the piece) I was a more chronologically coherent 18.
Unless there were some particularly juicy Stop The Way marches back in 2000, I think someone somewhere is either lying or not checking their writing.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:36 AM on August 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
Another, at 15 — selling whistles costing 3p on eBay for £2 a pop at the Stop the War march — earned him more than £1,000 in one day.
Yeah, let's rip off the smelly hippies, capitalism rules... Thatch is our god!
Ahem.. esp when set against this comment on the Lost in Showbiz post that let me to this particular pot of gold...
I do take comfort in one aspect of this - if the Stop The War march he sold the whistles at is the famous one where 2m people were ignored over Iraq, then I am better at remembering my own age than he is. After all, the piece says he, like me, is now 24, but whilst he was '15' at the parade (again according to the piece) I was a more chronologically coherent 18.
Unless there were some particularly juicy Stop The Way marches back in 2000, I think someone somewhere is either lying or not checking their writing.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:36 AM on August 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
Oh and sorry for NSFW... it appears that Platform changes it's front page each time you visit. The first time I went it appeared pretty innocuous, if insane. And well weapon.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:44 AM on August 7, 2009
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:44 AM on August 7, 2009
Can I swim against the tide a little? While not intended for me, his website is pretty cool and some of the articles are funny, engaging and well written. Mefi has always felt to me like it’s in its early 30s and I suspect that Platform’s readers wouldn’t like this site much either. Horses for courses.
I’m also somewhat irked by the fact that just because he’s privately educated he must, ipso facto, be a douchebag. He may or he may not be, but where he was educated is not the determining issue.
Finally, he’s clearly working his arse off. We criticise the young for being lazy, disengaged and shallow but yet when we come across someone who bucks the stereotype, we line up to knock him down.
I tell you what, I met some real douchebags this guy’s age working on graduate programmes in the City – while definitely a bit hipper than us lot, he’s succeeding on his own terms and I wish him well.
posted by dmt at 9:50 AM on August 7, 2009
I’m also somewhat irked by the fact that just because he’s privately educated he must, ipso facto, be a douchebag. He may or he may not be, but where he was educated is not the determining issue.
Finally, he’s clearly working his arse off. We criticise the young for being lazy, disengaged and shallow but yet when we come across someone who bucks the stereotype, we line up to knock him down.
I tell you what, I met some real douchebags this guy’s age working on graduate programmes in the City – while definitely a bit hipper than us lot, he’s succeeding on his own terms and I wish him well.
posted by dmt at 9:50 AM on August 7, 2009
“I would eat sushi at lunch. I had more money than friends who’d got it from their parents.”
Fuuuck. He had sushi. For LUNCH!
posted by naju at 9:57 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
Fuuuck. He had sushi. For LUNCH!
posted by naju at 9:57 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
shit article in a shit paper about a shithead.
*sets down cuppa, calls over shoulder to the missus*
"Have you seen today's Times, dearie? Looks like the price of shit is on the rise."
*turns back toward paper and then again over the shoulder*
"And it comes with a free douchebag! Bring my chequebook!"
posted by gompa at 10:17 AM on August 7, 2009
*sets down cuppa, calls over shoulder to the missus*
"Have you seen today's Times, dearie? Looks like the price of shit is on the rise."
*turns back toward paper and then again over the shoulder*
"And it comes with a free douchebag! Bring my chequebook!"
posted by gompa at 10:17 AM on August 7, 2009
It's a pity Twitters imploding because I'd be totally behind a #BlaiseBellvilleFacts hashtag.
posted by Artw at 10:20 AM on August 7, 2009
posted by Artw at 10:20 AM on August 7, 2009
I went to a private school and everyone there was a douchebag (including me). Don't feel that you have to stop taking the piss out of him for that for fear of hurting their feelings. They mostly don't have any. I met people there who got thousands of pounds per month for an allowance and they were all, to a person, total and utter wankers. I was there thanks to a dead grandparent who left enough money for me to get in. You can imagine how much they all thought of that.
posted by longbaugh at 10:20 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by longbaugh at 10:20 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
Is this something I'd have to be a wanker to understand?
posted by Mick at 10:42 AM on August 7, 2009
posted by Mick at 10:42 AM on August 7, 2009
the best part about england is how they have all these "celebrities" that the english pee their little knickers over and just think the world of and you realize that they're serious about it; they don't realize that being an english celebrity is like being the cutest flatworm and that no one outside of the uk could possibly give a shit about neville padbottom and shitwank gobfeffer or whatever the fuck the english are using for names nowadays
posted by Optimus Chyme at 11:17 AM on August 7, 2009 [6 favorites]
posted by Optimus Chyme at 11:17 AM on August 7, 2009 [6 favorites]
Isn't New York famously stuffed with similar hipster doofuses right now?
posted by Artw at 11:23 AM on August 7, 2009
posted by Artw at 11:23 AM on August 7, 2009
As far as sushi for lunch, I imagine they would eat the grated Blue Whale fluke whilst quaffing a flagon of child's tears at every meal if they could have done, such was the level of their twathood.
One of them had access to a helicopter at age 17. Where the fuck do you need to be aged 17 that requires vertical aerial access?
(and no he wasn't Scott Evil or Timothy Blofeld)
posted by longbaugh at 11:34 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
One of them had access to a helicopter at age 17. Where the fuck do you need to be aged 17 that requires vertical aerial access?
(and no he wasn't Scott Evil or Timothy Blofeld)
posted by longbaugh at 11:34 AM on August 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
Damn, maybe I had him wrong.
Mind, that could explain his plush, tabby bedclothes.
posted by longbaugh at 11:57 AM on August 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
Mind, that could explain his plush, tabby bedclothes.
posted by longbaugh at 11:57 AM on August 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
and just think the world of
No we generally hate celebs even if we appear to 'celebrate' them... esp micro-slebs like this dolt. You get a pass if you gain your five mins of fame by doing something out-right heroic though...
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:10 PM on August 7, 2009
No we generally hate celebs even if we appear to 'celebrate' them... esp micro-slebs like this dolt. You get a pass if you gain your five mins of fame by doing something out-right heroic though...
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:10 PM on August 7, 2009
Shortly after his coronation, Louis XVI visited Louis-le-Grand. Robespierre, then 17 years old, had been chosen out of five hundred pupils to deliver a speech to welcome the king; as a prize-winning student, the choice had been clear. On the day of speech, Robespierre and the crowd waited for the king and queen for several hours in the rain. Upon arrival, the royal couple remained in their coach for the ceremony and immediately left thereafter. Later, Robespierre would be one of those who would eventually work towards the death of the king.
I think there is a lesson for us all here.
posted by Artw at 12:16 PM on August 7, 2009 [4 favorites]
I think there is a lesson for us all here.
posted by Artw at 12:16 PM on August 7, 2009 [4 favorites]
(I'm not thinking of a way in which it could be a lesson in which shitty little Shoreditch fuckers come out well though. Is he the haughty and indifferent king? In which case lets guillotine his ass. Is he the bitter man who rises to a position of power and uses it as an oportunity to pursue petty vendettas? Then really we need to quietly have his brains bashed out before he can do so.)
posted by Artw at 12:21 PM on August 7, 2009
posted by Artw at 12:21 PM on August 7, 2009
The coolest entrepreneur in the coolest part of the coolest city in the world...
...looks like a member of Ah-Hah. Bet the teenybopper girls love the look.
posted by happyroach at 12:54 PM on August 7, 2009
...looks like a member of Ah-Hah. Bet the teenybopper girls love the look.
posted by happyroach at 12:54 PM on August 7, 2009
He needs to have a cage match with this guy to determine who is king of the douchebags.
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 2:45 PM on August 7, 2009
posted by Antidisestablishmentarianist at 2:45 PM on August 7, 2009
Publicity handjob. WHo gives a fu*K. That article lost me at "the coolest city in the world."
London? I don't think so.
posted by Skygazer at 2:52 PM on August 7, 2009
London? I don't think so.
posted by Skygazer at 2:52 PM on August 7, 2009
I know that this has just become another MeFi snarkpile and such, but I swear I'm being sincere when I say that this left me so uninterested, I could feel it IN MY TEETH. I was overwhelmed by my underwhelment.
posted by LMGM at 2:54 PM on August 7, 2009
posted by LMGM at 2:54 PM on August 7, 2009
Underwhelmints™! Helps you get the taste of meh out of your mouth.
HAI I'M AN ENTREPRENEUR TOO
OK, bedtime
posted by LMGM at 2:55 PM on August 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
HAI I'M AN ENTREPRENEUR TOO
OK, bedtime
posted by LMGM at 2:55 PM on August 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
Umm...I guess I should've read the thread before commenting. This is why I love you people...everyone's douche-meter is flying off the charts...so funny.
posted by Skygazer at 3:05 PM on August 7, 2009
posted by Skygazer at 3:05 PM on August 7, 2009
first article I found that looked interesting strippers + coffee = thumbs down he says "I have never been to a strip club"
wanker.
posted by edmo at 4:36 PM on August 7, 2009
wanker.
posted by edmo at 4:36 PM on August 7, 2009
Did you learn anything about Skateboarding?
I have to say that the most instructive thing I've gotten out of this is reading that Wikipedia article on Robespierre, who it turns out is a a person I really do not like the sound of. Which is interesting considering my usual pro-cutting-heads-off-of-artistocracy sentiment.
posted by Artw at 4:42 PM on August 7, 2009
I have to say that the most instructive thing I've gotten out of this is reading that Wikipedia article on Robespierre, who it turns out is a a person I really do not like the sound of. Which is interesting considering my usual pro-cutting-heads-off-of-artistocracy sentiment.
posted by Artw at 4:42 PM on August 7, 2009
I gave it a shot, and I am far more googleable than this guy. Also, I had sushi for breakfast. Am I cool yet?
posted by kanewai at 4:56 PM on August 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by kanewai at 4:56 PM on August 7, 2009 [1 favorite]
Friend of mine went to a good public school in England, and made some pocket money by buying porn mags, cutting them up and then selling on the cuttings, each for almost the cost of the magazine itself.
Genius.
posted by djgh at 3:42 PM on August 8, 2009
Genius.
posted by djgh at 3:42 PM on August 8, 2009
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