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<keyword id="3477747" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="shankar-musafir">Shankar Musafir</keyword>’s wife Geetanjali is a big <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=salman+khan&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Salman Khan </a>fan. When <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=bajrangi+bhaijaan&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Bajrangi Bhaijan </a>released, she had asked her husband to arrange five tickets of the movie, but Musafir was unable to do so. 
 And, thus he swore to make up to his wife the next time a <keyword id="6354583" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Salman-Khan">Salman Khan</keyword> movie releases. 
 
Staying true to his word, Musafir, an alumnus of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=JNU&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Jawaharlal Nehru University</a> booked an entire 120-seater ARV Cinemas in <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=himachal+pradesh&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Himachal Pradesh</a>’s <keyword id="3478998" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="gurukul-mall">Gurukul Mall</keyword> a day before <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=sultan&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Sultan</a> released so that his wife could watch the movie in peace on the first day. 
 
Geetanjali, who thought it would have been a regular affair of movie-watching found out the surprise her husband had in store for her only when they reaches the theatre. 
 
“I don’t think anyone has given a surprise like this to their wife,’ she happily said when asked about how she felt about her husband booking an entire theatre for her. 
 
 
As Musafir posted their photos from the theatre on Facebook, his post met with numerable comments from his friends praising his romantic gesture while some even complained that he had set the bar too high. 
 
Amit Thakur, the managing director of the mall was also pretty surprised to see Musafir walk in with only his wife as he’d expected him to come in with 120 people. 
 
The management reportedly offered free snacks to the couple during the movie. Musafir married Geetanjali in April last year.

This man surprised his wife by booking an entire theatre to watch Salman Khan’s 'Sultan'

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">AP Photo/Nati Harnik</div></div></div>Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is out with its annual letter to shareholders.Near the bottom of the letter, the billionaire investor touches on his favorite reads of 2016."The best book I read last year was <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shoe-Dog-Memoir-Creator-Nike/dp/1501135910">'Shoe Dog' by Nike's Phil Knight</a>," he writes. "Phil is a very wise, intelligent and competitive fellow who is also a gifted storyteller."He adds that Omaha, Nebraska-based retailer The Bookworm will have "piles" of the book, in addition to "investment classics by Jack Bogle," at the annual Berkshire shareholder meeting in May. Notably, Buffett is actually briefly mentioned near the end of "Shoe Dog."The majority of the Knight's book is dedicated to the story of Nike leading up to its IPO in 1980. But the last chapter shoots forward to 2007 when he and his wife, Penny, go to see "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bucket_List">The Bucket List</a>" at the movies.After the credits roll and the lights go up, Knight writes, he sees a few familiar faces in the theatre lobby:"At first we can't place them. We're still seeing Nicholson and Freeman in our minds. But these faces are equally familiar - equally famous. Now we realize. It's Bill and Warren. Gates and Buffett.We stroll over.Neither man is what you'd call a close friend, but we've met them several times, at social events and conferences. And we have common causes, common interests, a few mutual acquaintances. 'Fancy meeting you here!' I say. Then I cringe. Did I really just say that? Is it possible that I'm still shy and awkward in the presence of celebrities?"Knight continues to describe some of the pleasantries exchanged, after which his wife asks if Buffett and Gates enjoyed the movie. He continues:"Yes, they both say, looking down at their shoes, though it was a bit depressing. What's on your bucket lists? I nearly ask, but I don't. Gates and Buffett seem to have done everything they've ever wanted in this life. They have no bucket lists, surely.Which makes me ask myself: Have I?"Without spoiling the ending of the book, Knight ultimately concludes that, for all of his success, there is still always something more and something new to do.(For what it's worth, Gates also listed "Shoe Dog" as one of his <a href="https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Best-Books-2016">favorite</a> books of 2016.) <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/navy-seal-explains-tips-attacked-by-dog-2017-2">A Navy SEAL explains what to do if you're attacked by a dog</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="lhbDFyOTE6OzheGWIb596U_-Bnp_bK7z" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

WARREN BUFFETT: This is the best book I read last year...

There was a time when Michael Corleone Blanco didn't want to hear the name Billy Corben, let alone sit across from him.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-cocaine-cowboys-documentary-franchise-was-created-2021-8">Corben's 2006 documentary "Cocaine Cowboys,"</a> which chronicles the Miami drug war of the late 1970s, was the spark that arguably ignited the modern-day fascination with Blanco's mother <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/griselda-blanco-jail-true-story-netflix-sofia-vergara-2024-1">Griselda Blanco</a> — also known as the "godmother of cocaine" — in pop culture.Since then, her story has been told as everything from a Netflix series starring Sofia Vergara and a Lifetime movie starring Catherine Zeta-Jones to a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.rakontur.com/confessions-of-a-cocaine-cowboy">stage play</a>.But Michael Corleone Blanco, the famed drug kingpin's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/griselda-blanco-sons-now-michael-blanco-lawsuit-netflix-2024-1">only surviving son</a>, learned quickly that true-crime fame is a double-edged sword.At the same time Corben was making his first "Cocaine Cowboys" movie — the franchise now includes two more documentaries and a Netflix series — Blanco was also pitching his family's story around Hollywood. But Corben's documentary found audiences first."They were my archnemesis because they were doing what I was planning to do," Blanco told Business Insider, referring to Corben, his producing partner Alfred Spellman, and editor David Cypkin, who make up the Miami-based media studio Rakontur.Fast forward almost twenty years, and Corben and Blanco have joined forces for the podcast "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?">The Real Griselda,</a>" which picks apart the Netflix hit series <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/griselda-blanco-son-michael-corleone-blanco-netflix-series-inaccurate-2024-2">"Griselda" to reveal what's fact and what's fiction</a>.Across eight episodes of the podcast, which is hosted by Corben, Blanco points out the creative liberties taken in "Griselda," often backing them up with colorful stories. He says his mother never lit kilos of cocaine on fire in an empty pool, for example, and notes that some of the murders were more gruesome in real life than in the show. In the case of his <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/griselda-blanco-husbands-killed-dario-sepulveda-alberto-bravo-carlos-trujillo-netflix-2024-1">father's murder</a>, in real life, young Michael didn't just see it happen; his father held him tight in his arms, shielding him from the gunshots that killed him (the hit on his father is believed to have been ordered by Griselda).The podcast also sheds some light on Michael's life following the events shown in the Netflix series. He lived with foster families while his mother served three 20-year prison sentences for murder concurrently (upon her release in 2004, she was deported to Colombia, where she died of a gunshot wound in 2012). He briefly followed in his family's footsteps and dabbled in the drug trade.Now, Blanco is determined to make it by going legit: he's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.mymotherthegodmother.com/">written a book</a> and says he's developing TV shows and movies. He's eager to prove that there is a future for the Blanco name beyond its notorious past."When you're from a drug trafficking family, and you're fucking Miami monarchy, Miami royalty, it takes a lot for you to understand that that life has gone away," Blanco said. "You have to evolve as a man. And the only way I could evolve was legalizing my story."BI spoke over the phone with Corben and Blanco about why they teamed up for a podcast, the actor Blanco believes did the best portrayal of his mother, and how Corben got close to becoming a victim of the cocaine godmother's wrath.<div type="image" title="Billy Corben and Michael Corleone Blanco sitting in front of microphones" height="3024" width="4032" msid="107899577" hostid="261" sizebytes="738860"></div>The podcast makes it sound like you two have known each other for years. Billy, when was your first interaction with Michael?Corben: This goes way back. It was probably between the release of "Cocaine Cowboys" and "Cocaine Cowboys 2." Michael, does that sound right?Blanco: Yeah. I would say 2006 or 2007. I remember like it was yesterday, walking to The Colony Theatre for the second movie. Still being part of that underground world back then, I wanted to make a statement. So, I showed up with 20-30 goons. I let people know South Beach was my stomping grounds.Michael, you speak on the podcast about the animosity you had toward Billy and his filmmaking partners at that time. When did you figure out that you could also make money off your family?Blanco: Not that long after that. One thing my mother taught me was how to pivot. From the moment I got a call from one of their movie's investors for the first movie, I knew that I had to put some pep in my step and get on their level. I was a rookie in the industry.But I will say the smartest thing I ever did was not to listen to my lawyer or my mother and put a cease and desist on the first "Cocaine Cowboys" movie. I knew that one day, the Griselda Blanco story and the Blanco family story would have to be told, and with them already telling some of the story, it was going to help me out.Then, when Billy put together the play "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cocaine-cowboys-being-made-into-a-play-2019-3">Confessions of a Cocaine Cowboy</a>" in 2019, which also played at The Colony, I didn't see Billy, Alfred, and Dave as my archnemesis anymore. I remember having a drink with Billy back then, and I told him thank you. Because if it wasn't for that wave you created I wouldn't be here right now. Because now I make the big bucks. It's a full-circle moment, being on this podcast.Corben: And as much as Michael and his mother felt that something had been taken from them, remember, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ocala.com/story/news/2006/10/28/film-on-drug-trade-a-bootleg-hit/31173480007/">"Cocaine Cowboys" blew up because of the bootleg market</a>. They were sold in flea markets, barbershops, strip club bathrooms. Bootlegs of our movie was how it blew up.Blanco: I would autograph their movie. It blew my mind. I had a tattoo parlor, and people would come in with the bootleg and ask if I could autograph it. Let me put it to you more plainly: I remember being in federal detention, and someone snuck in a DVD, and with his back to the security camera, someone would come up to me and say, "Mr. Blanco, can you sign this for my wife?"Billy, how close were you to not just doing a "Cocaine Cowboys" documentary with the cooperation of Michael, but also getting Griselda on camera?Corben: Michael can answer that better than me.Blanco: We were one meeting away and around six figures.Corben: [Laughs.] Yeah. That sounds about accurate to me. As "Cocaine Cowboys" turned into a franchise of documentaries, there was definitely a desire to have the story of "La Madrina" told by La Madrina. The conversations continued but unfortunately did not consummate.Blanco: We were almost there. Prior to 2012, my mother and I had the conversation. Money talks and bullshit runs the marathon. So when we were able to close not one but two motion picture deals based on her life rights and my life rights, by that time, my mother understood that we had something that the masses wanted.She gave me the power of attorney, and that's when I started negotiations with Billy. And like I said, I think we were one meeting, and probably six figures away.<div type="image" title="Sofia Vergara as Griselda Blanco in &quot;Griselda.&quot;" height="2000" width="3000" msid="107896042" hostid="261"></div>Billy, Michael says in the podcast that you "almost got the knock on the door," referring to Griselda's thought of putting a hit on you. Back when you made the "Cocaine Cowboys" movies, did you fear for your life?Corben: We were pretty young and naive back then, so I wouldn't call it a fear, but I would very much call it a concern. We talked about it. We would hear from people whose parents were murdered during that time period in Miami. Some were depicted in the documentaries.Blanco: It was an offense that these stories were being let out of the bag.I assume you thought, "Who gives these people the right to tell the public what I know?"Blanco: Yeah. And now it's like, "Who the hell are you to tell me and Billy Corben about what went down? We're the fucking experts!"Billy, is that what led to making "The Real Griselda" podcast? Basically fact-checking the Netflix "Griselda" show?Corben: It was one of those things where it develops really slowly, and then something happens that just accelerates that plan. And what's amazing about this is we basically came up with the same idea at the same time. We were thinking late last year, independent of each other, that this "Griselda" thing was going to come out on Netflix. The marketing machine was already firing up, and it was apparent they were going to put a lot of juice behind pushing this series. We thought, what can we do? We knew there would be a great deal of creative license. What can we do to tell the real story?Michael, which portrayal of your mother is more impressive: Catherine Zeta-Jones' in "Cocaine Godmother," or Sofia Vergara's in "Griselda"?Blanco: I would love to be able to comment on that, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/griselda-blanco-family-settles-lawsuit-against-netflix-sofia-vergara-2024-2">but I cannot</a>.Corben: But, Michael, you really liked the portrayal done in the play, right?Blanco: I loved that.<div type="image" title="Zilah Mendoza in a white fedora and dress" height="601" width="1200" msid="107896043" hostid="261"></div>Corben: I remember Michael holding that woman and crying outside the theater after the show. Zilah Mendoza is her name.Blanco: I have been following her career on Instagram. I have sent her some DMs. She's a hell of an actress. She came very close to my mother's state of being in general. My mother was a very rigid lady. But she was very comical. Her dark humor was that of a woman who came from humble beginnings. My mother was a tough cookie, and I think Zilah came very close to that.Billy, is there a highlight from the podcast for you?Corben: We have a funny exchange that didn't fully end up in an episode. We talk about how Sofia Vergara lights a huge pile of cocaine on fire that's stacked in an empty pool. I couldn't even zoom in and count the number of kilos; that's how many there were. Hundreds if not thousands of kilos, and she lights it on fire. And I asked Michael if she ever did that; that's like lighting hundreds of millions of dollars on fire. He said of course not. The Joker does it in "The Dark Knight" because he's an anarchist and insane. But Griselda was a businesswoman.Why is Griselda Blanco such a fascination for people? From the documentaries, the rap songs, the TV shows, the play, why has she become a fixture in pop culture?Corben: I think it starts with pop culture having a fascination with banditos and people we see as the villains. Ask any actor why they prefer to play the villain than the hero; they are just more interesting.I think the problem is when people reduce these characters to single dimensions. And that's what makes Griselda so compelling is that she is so multifaceted. She's one of the most successful cocaine traffickers in history. At the dawn of the modern industry she was a mother, a wife, a daughter, a grandmother, a godmother. What was Al Capone? He was a gangster. He was a bootlegger. There's not a lot to him. She's a far more dynamic person and personality.<div type="image" title="Michael Corleone Blanco speaking into a microphone" height="1080" width="1920" msid="107896044" hostid="261"></div>Michael, you mention a "generational curse" multiple times on the podcast. Your namesake, Michael Corleone in "The Godfather," is the brother who is meant to bring legitimacy to the Corleone family. I can't help but see the similarities between that fictional character's quest and your own. Do you believe that you went through all this because you were chosen to bring legitimacy to the Blanco name?Blanco: Thank you for that. 100%. I tell my two older boys that all the time. It's a common friend of ours who said, "Sometimes you have to remind people of your achievements," and I've had to remind myself of my achievements.I was part of that generational curse for so long. I speak about this in my book; as a 45-year-old man, I may not be the wisest, but I have lived what people don't live in two or three lifetimes. My brothers and mother would say all the time, "You have to show the face for the family. You have to make this shit legit."But in return, I was robbed of my innocence since I was a child. We have a saying in Colombia: "Innocence lost, a kilo for a life," and I believe all generational curses have been broken in my family's bloodline. I'm the first Blanco to bring legit money home and I'm so happy and proud of that. Even this podcast was 100% legit. My mother always told me if you do something, you do it big or you keep your ass at home, and we did it big, and we did it legit.This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Everyone wants to cash in on Griselda Blanco. Most of all, her son.

Inside the wild, drug-fueled world of celebrity keynote speakers

Bang Bang, tattoo artist to the stars, monitored employees with cameras and controlled their Instagram accounts, ex-staffers say

<a href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Election-2020-Andrew-Yang/8c424a26eda842f096c27c4006a0fc1b/111/0">John Locher/Associated Press</a>Democratic presidential candidate entrepreneur Andrew Yang, left, chats with his campaign manager Zach Graumann, center, ahead of a campaign event Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020, in Clinton, Iowa. (AP Photo/John Locher)<ul class="summary-list"><li>Andrew Yang's former campaign manager, Zach Graumann, had no political experience before serving at the helm of 2020's surprise campaign.</li><li>Beyonce has the "Beyhive." Taylor Swift has the "Swifties." Andrew Yang has the #YangGang. Graumann offered a previously unreported account of what the campaign got right and where it fell short.</li><li>After disappointing in Iowa and New Hampshire before dropping out, Yang now has a contract with CNN. Mike Bloomberg has already <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/michael-bloombergs-campaign-sought-andrew-yangsbacking-floated-vice-presidential-slot-11582831342">courted him as a potential VP pick</a>.</li><li>How did he make it this far when others didn't? By leaning into authenticity on social media, engaging with fans, and offering them something to identify with, his campaign manager told Insider.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul>KEENE, N.H. - Resting his lanky frame on a makeup chair backstage at an old vaudeville theater, Andrew Yang's then-campaign manager kept his bloodshot eyes fixed on his phone while the candidate fired up the crowd. Running on minimal sleep and a Cumberland Farms XL Chillzone filled with Diet Dr. Pepper, Zach Graumann was in the midst of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/yang-campaign-lays-off-staff-after-dismal-iowa-results-2020-2">post-Iowa layoffs</a>, the sprint to voting day in New Hampshire and, ultimately, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/andrew-yang-drops-out-of-presidential-race-after-new-hampshire-2020-2/amp/">the end</a> of one of the 2020 campaign's most surprising efforts. Graumann, 32, has spent most of his career in banking and social entrepreneurship, with no prior political experience before finding himself at the helm of Yang's campaign for more than two years. Under his stewardship, the longshot bid would manage to outlast those of senators, governors and other well-known Democrats who succumbed to a crowded field and somehow missed what Yang and his team got right.But Yang's candidacy has more to offer than an admirable underdog tale.By going niche and taking risks online, Yang not only cultivated a following, but showed Democrats how to rewrite the campaign playbook for the digital age."A lot of people who think that you can 'disrupt' politics usually find themselves falling flat on their face," Graumann said. "At the end of the day, you've gotta get people to pull a lever - or to caucus, which is another beast. "But I will say there are a lot of approaches, particularly to marketing [where Yang stood out]," he continued. "That's the approach Andrew and I took: you can't just be good, you've gotta be different. You've got a crowded field, how do you stand out?"For Graumann, the answer ended up lying in corners of the internet overlooked by most Democratic campaigns: Reddit, Instagram and longform podcasts. That's what brought in the donations needed to make the debate stage and grow the campaign.Graumann described the unconventional online blitz as "optimizing" for the Democratic National Committee's individual donor thresholds go get on stage.Podcasts, in particular, catapulted the campaign. "The cable news outlets weren't itching to take Andrew Yang on their shows," Graumann grumbled, perhaps more from fatigue than the campaign's public <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1198258580996214784">grievances with MSNBC</a> and CNN.Going on the lengthy and popular podcasts hosted by neuroscientist and author Sam Harris, and, subsequently, the all powerful Joe Rogan Experience - with the comedian and UFC announcer's interview reaching over <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsEzmFamZ8&amp;t=6s">5 million views on YouTube</a> - is what started bringing in the fundraising dollars and the fanbase. Save for Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, it was a gamble none of the other campaigns were willing to take at the time, with the field continuing to multiply in the late winter of 2019.<h2>Looking the part</h2>Charlie Neibergall/Associated PressGraumann and Yang wait in the wings ahead of a town hall at the Perry Perk coffee shop, Friday, Jan. 3, 2020, in Perry, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)Graumann moved around growing up, with his formative years spent in Buffalo, N.Y. and West Hartford, Conn. Upon graduating from Duke, Graumann was faced with a utilitarian dilemma: join Teach For America in post-Katrina New Orleans and have a tougher time paying off his student loans, or cash in on Wall Street at UBS?"I remember hating that decision," Graumann sighed. "It's like, you can either save the world or make money. You can do well or do good, but you can't do both."He ended up gravitating toward UBS' charity efforts and founded a non-profit called <a href="https://volunteersuitup.org/">SuitUp</a>, which runs career-awareness competitions - or "Shark Tank-lite," in Graumann's own words - and other events for disadvantaged kids with the backing of Fortune 500 companies and startups. In that "social entrepreneurship" realm is where he would eventually meet Yang, quickly leading the scaling up of a campaign flush with cash but lacking in political insiders who had navigated the waters before.While some senior staff and advisers get the full profile treatment on insurgent campaigns - such as Pete Buttigieg's senior communications adviser, <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/lis-smith-pete-buttigieg-2020-campaign.html">Lis Smith</a>, who is credited with waging an all-out exposure strategy to help the previously unkown mayor break through the pack - Graumann kept a low profile throughout the campaign.Perhaps the most exposure the former UBS banker got was in a viral video clip of him restraining Yang from giving a shot of whipped cream to a supporter on his knees during a field office opening party in New Hampshire.Despite being 13 years Yang's junior, Graumann said he often found himself being a more cautious or steadying influence on Yang, but occasionally it would be the other way around."I have to be the straight man or the dad on the campaign," Graumann quipped. "He jokes that he's the baby on the trail."Backstage at the ABC debate in Manchester, N.H., Yang's wife, Evelyn, said her kids call Graumann "Uncle Zach," describing him as one of Yang's closest friends and confidants. Mrs. Yang said Graumann's background in banking and looks can be deceiving, with the campaign manager having a softer side than one may assume by picking him out of a crowd."I guess you could say I look the part," Graumann said back at the Colonial Theatre in Keene. "But if you actually look at my resume [of philanthropy], I'm far from a Wall Street bro in that sense."<h2>'A unicorn'</h2>John Locher/Associated PressGraumann, left, shadows Yang as the candidate meets with supporters at a campaign event Thursday, Jan. 23, 2020, in Dubuque, Iowa. (AP Photo/John Locher)Graumann jumped onboard the campaign about as early as possible. During a dinner after the Jefferson Business Roundtable in June 2017, Yang told a small group of social entrepreneurs that he was planning on running for president after delving into the looming threat of automation on the American workforce. "So Yang comes in and drops this bomb - he's like, 'I'm running for president' - and people are like, 'Of America?'" Graumann chuckled.As attendees exchanged curious glances, Graumann was sold, especially after reading an early copy of Yang's book, "The War on Normal People.""I don't know what's crazier, him saying he's running for president or my infinite wisdom saying, 'Alright, cool man! I'm in." Graumann described Yang's personality as being "a force of nature" that can take over almost any room. As ludicrous as the idea may have initially seemed, Graumann said he had confidence in Yang's vision and drive to have go of it in politics. Leaning on a tech bro-ism, Graumann called Yang a "unicorn" in the world of social entrepreneurship."And now, he's a unicorn in this space too," Graumann said of the rookie campaigner. "He's Andrew Yang. He's just a force."It wasn't all rosy for the Yang insurgency. Poor finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire led to a swift dropout, and post-Iowa layoffs <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/yang-campaign-lays-off-staff-after-dismal-iowa-results-2020-2">caught employees off guard</a>. Back in New York, Graumann said the sprint to New Hampshire left him wishing the cutbacks could have been handled better, and that wrapping up after dropping out was one of the hardest parts of his duties."It's never fun to wind down a campaign," he said. "It's like you're building a Fortune 500 company and then shutting it down in a matter of months."Team Yang also ran into occasional trouble with its heavily male base of vocal supporters. A flurry of news cycles <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/andrew-yang-s-campaign-supporters-struggle-push-away-extremist-support-n993241">reported</a> that some used the campaign's name in online white nationalist and xenophobic tropes being shared.Yang was <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/andrew-yang-denounces-white-nationalist-support_n_5cb3c987e4b098b9a2d57b66">quick to disavow</a> those factions, but Graumann said finding a way to quash the online hatred without a whack-a-mole effect became a steep task. "One of the best things we did is, instead of saying 'we're against this, we're against this, we're against this,'" Graumann said, putting aside his Chillzone to rapidly deploy finger guns, "is just say, 'Well this is what we're for.'"So we set up our '<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201807/the-humanity-first-candidate">Humanity First Values</a>,' and it sounds so cheesy, but it totally works," he continued, "Then you can have moderators in your Facebook groups, and Twitter and elsewhere that say, 'Hey, if you're not living by these values, we're gonna talk to you, and if you don't wanna [abide], then you're just not gonna be part of the Yang Gang.'"<h2>The past and future of the #YangGang</h2>Associated PressDemocratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang takes a photograph with a member of the audience as he arrives at "Our Rights, Our Courts" forum New Hampshire Technical Institute's Concord Community College, Saturday, Feb. 8, 2020, in Concord, N.H. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)Key to the campaign's success was "branding supporters," according to Graumann.Beyonce has the "Beyhive." Taylor Swift has the "Swifties." Andrew Yang has the #YangGang."One of the things I'm really passionate about is identity branding," Graumann said. He drew a parallel to 2016, where Trump and Sanders supporters went by their own monikers - #deplorables, MAGA, feeling the Bern - while other candidates looked on. Despite some internal disagreement over whether to use the word "gang" in campaign messaging, Graumann convinced the team to roll with the Yang Gang brand after discovering a random Instagram comment. "We knew out of the gate that we had to build an army," he said, calling the name "visceral."The other major factor in the Yang Gang sustaining the campaign was in the candidate's interactions with them. Graumann noted that despite valid arguments to the contrary, Yang used his own Twitter account throughout the campaign. He traded memes with them. That two-way street between candidate and supporter has untapped potential in the digital era, Graumann argued, as long as the candidate comes across as "authentic."Social psychologists would describe the dynamic in most nationwide campaigns between the candidate and supporters as a parasocial relationship - the fan may know everything about their favorite athlete or musician, but the principal doesn't have to reciprocate. Yet what the success of the Yang campaign revealed, for Graumann, is the reward of going niche when other campaigns compromise for broad appeal. Once he was back in New York on a frigid February weekday, the now ex-campaign manager reflected on the highs and lows of the past two years."There are a few mistakes I wish we could have back," he said when asked about how the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/yang-campaign-lays-off-staff-after-dismal-iowa-results-2020-2">layoffs</a> went down, declining to elaborate further on personnel.As for what's in store for Yang, Graumann grew confident but coy.Secretary Yang? Mayor Yang? Governor Yang?"I think he's probably one of the more coveted endorsements out there [for the rest of 2020]," Graumann said. "Andrew Yang would bring a lot of different types of voters and excitement to anything he does.""As a Democrat, I hope the party looks at what we did and what Andrew's done for future elections and races." <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/presidential-debate-entertaining-problem-democratic-trump-reality-tv-show-2019-9">How networks treat the Democratic debates like reality TV</a></h3>

Andrew Yang's campaign manager had zero political experience. This is how he built an insurgent candidacy that outlasted powerful rivals.

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Is-True-Everything-Possible/dp/1610394550?tag=bisafetynet-20" target="_blank"></div></div></div>Next door is a spa and beauty salon. You go for your gold-digger lessons, then you go get waxed and tanned.The teacher is a forty-something redhead with a psychology degree, an MBA, and a shrill smile, her voice high and prim, a Miss Jean Brodie in short skirts: "Never wear jewelry on a first date, the man should think you're poor. Make him want to buy you jewelry. Arrive in a broken-down car: make him want to buy you a smarter one."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>The students take notes in neat writing. They have paid a thousand dollars for each week of the course. There are dozens of such "academies" in Moscow and St. Petersburg, with names such as "Geisha School" or "How to Be a Real Woman.""Go to an expensive area of town," continues the instructress. "Stand with a map and pretend you are lost. A wealthy man might approach to help."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>"I want a man who can stand strong on [his] own two feet. Who will make me feel as safe as behind a wall of stone," says Oliona, a recent graduate, employing the parallel language of the gold digger (what she means is she wants a man with money).Usually Oliona wouldn't even think of talking to me, one of those impossible-to-access girls who would bat me away with a flick of her eyelashes. But I'm going to put her on television, and that changes everything.The show is going to be called How to Marry a Millionaire. I had thought it would be tough to get Oliona to talk, that she would be shy about her life. Quite the opposite: she can't wait to tell the world; the way of the gold digger has become one of the country's favorite myths. Bookstores are stocked with self-help books telling girls how to bag a millionaire. A roly-poly pimp, Peter Listerman, is a TV celebrity.He doesn't call himself a pimp (that would be illegal), but a "matchmaker." Girls pay him to introduce them to rich men. Rich men pay him to introduce them to girls.His agents, gay teenage boys, search at the train stations, looking for long-legged, lithe young things who have come to Moscow for some sort of life. Listerman calls the girls his "chickens"; he poses for photos with kebab sticks of grilled poussins: "Come to me if you're after chicken," his advertisements say.Oliona lives in a small, sparkly new apartment with her nervous little dog. The apartment is on one of the main roads that leads to billionaire's row, Rublevka.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>Rich men put their mistresses there so they can nip in and visit them on the way home.She first came to Moscow from Donbas, a Ukrainian mining region taken over by mafia bosses in the 1990s. Her mother was a hairdresser.Oliona studied the same profession, but her mother's little boutique went bust.Oliona came to Moscow with next to nothing when she was twenty and started as a stripper at one of the casinos, Golden Girls.She danced well, which is how she met her sugar daddy.Now she earns the basic Moscow mistress rate: the apartment, $4,000 a month, a car, and a weeklong holi- day in Turkey or Egypt twice a year.In return the sugar daddy gets her supple and tanned body any time he wants, day or night, always rainbow happy, always ready to perform."You should see the eyes of the girls back home. They're deadly jealous," says Oliona. "'Oh, so your accent's changed, you speak like a Muscovite now,' they say. Well, f**k them: that just makes me proud.""Could you ever go back there?""Never. That would mean I'd failed. Gone back to mummy."But her sugar daddy promised her a new car three months ago, and he still hasn't delivered; she's worried he's going off her."Everything you see in this flat is his; I don't own anything," says Oliona, peering at her own apartment as if it's just a stage set, as if it's someone else who lives there.And the minute the sugar daddy gets bored with her, she's out. Back on the street with her nervous little dog and a dozen sequined dresses. So Oliona's looking for a new sugar daddy (they're not called "sugar daddies" here but "sponsors"). Thus the Gold Digger Academy, a sort of adult education."But how can you meet with others guys?" I ask. "Doesn't your present sponsor keep tabs on you?""Oh yeah, I have to be careful; he has one of his bodyguards check up on me. But he does it in a nice way; the bodyguard turns up with shopping. But I know he's checking there've been no guys here. He tries to be subtle. I think that's sweet. Other girls have it much worse. Cameras. Private eyes."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>Oliona's playing fields are a constellation of clubs and restaurants designed almost exclusively for the purpose of sponsors looking for girls and girls looking for sponsors. The guys are known as "Forbeses" (as in Forbes rich list); the girls as "tiolki," cattle. It's a buyer's market: there are dozens, no, hundreds, of "cattle" for every "Forbes."We start the evening at Galeria. Opposite is a red-brick monastery leaning like an ocean liner in the snow.Outside the restaurant black cars are quadruple parked up the narrow pavement and onto the boulevard; scowling, smoking bodyguards wait for their masters, who sit inside.Galeria was created by Arkady Novikov: his restaurants are the place to go in Moscow (he also does the Kremlin's catering).<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>Each restaurant has a new theme: the Middle East, Asia. Not so much imitative pastiche as knowing hints at someone else's style.Galeria is a collage of quotations: columns, chrome black tables, panels with English paisley fabric.The tables are lit up with cinema spotlights.The seating plan is such that you can see people in other corners.And the main subjects on display are women. They sit by the bar, careful to just order Voss water and thus provoke a Forbes to invite them for a drink."Ha, they're so naïve," says Oliona. "Everyone knows that trick by now."She orders a cocktail and sushi: "I always pretend I don't need anything from a man.That gets them in."At midnight Oliona heads for the latest club. Worming cavalcades of black (always black), bullet-proof Bentleys and Mercedeses move slowly toward the entrance. Near the door thousands of stilettos slide and shuffle on black ice, somehow always keeping their immaculate balance.Oh nation of ballet dancers!<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>Thousands of platinum-blonde manes brush against bare, perma-tanned backs moist with snow. The winter air is rent with cries from thousands of puffed up lips, begging to be let in. This is not about fashion, about cool; this is about work. Tonight is the one chance for the girls to dance and glance their way over the usually impossible barriers of money, private armies, security fences.For one evening a week the most divided city in the northern hemisphere, where the mega-rich live fenced off in a separate, silky civilization, opens a little, narrow sluice into paradise. And the girls pile and push and crawl into that little sluice, knowing full well that it will be open for one night only before it shuts them back out in a mean Moscow.Oliona walks lightly to the front of the line. She's on the VIP list. At the beginning of every year she pays the bouncer several thousand dollars to make sure she can always be let in, a necessary tax for her profession.Inside, the club is built like a baroque theater, with a dance floor in the center and rows of loggias up the walls. The Forbeses sit in the darkened loggias (they pay tens of thousands for the pleasure), while Oliona and hundreds of other girls dance below, throwing practiced glances up at the loggias, hoping to be invited up.The loggias are in darkness. The girls have no idea who exactly is sitting there; they're flirting with shadows."So many eighteen-year-old girls," says Oliona, "breathing down my neck." She's only twenty-two, but that's already near the end of a Moscow mistress's career."I know I'll have to start lowering my standards soon," she tells me, amused rather than appalled.Now that Oliona has taken me into her confidence, I find that she's nothing like I thought she would be.Not hard, but soft-drink bubbly.Everything's just play with her. This must be the secret to her success: the room feels fizzier when she's there."Of course I'm still hoping for a real Forbes," she says, "but if the worst comes to the worst I'll settle for some millionaire dunce who's come up from the provinces, or one of those dull ex-pats. Or some vile old man."But no one knows what a gold digger's future really holds; this is the first generation to have treated this sort of life as a career. Oliona has a mafia mining town behind her and god-knows-what in front of her; she's giggling and dancing over an abyss.Republished with permission from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Is-True-Everything-Possible/dp/1610394550" target="_blank">Nothing is True and Everything is Possible</a> by <a href="https://twitter.com/peterpomeranzev" target="_blank">Peter Pomerantsev</a>. Copyright © 2014 by Peter Pomerantsev. Reprinted by arrangement with PublicAffairs, a division of Perseus Books Group. All rights reserved. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/beauty-standards-family-values-china-2015-2">What the Chinese saying 'The ugly wife is a treasure at home' actually means</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="A2ZDA2czqSqbJOFG5SDDrvRmvRoUjAPm" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

What it's like to attend a modern day 'gold digger academy' in Russia

37. Battle of the Brands: Leo Fender vs Les Paul

On August 3rd, 1900, Charles Yerkes, an American financier and ex-convict, gazed across London from the top of Hampstead Heath.
His journey through the capital in a horse-drawn carriage had already begun to persuade him that it was a fine place to invest.
The streets heaved with people; Yerkes had never travelled through such a densely populated city. But the view from one of its highest points clinched his interest.
To the south lay spires, crowded terraced houses and congested streets. To the north were pastures, stretches of farmland and a few sleepy villages.
Within two decades that landscape was transformed--thanks to Yerkes. By 1907 elegant redbrick Underground stations had been built to the north at Archway, near Highgate village, and to the north-west at Golders Green, on a site previously dominated by a pig farm and a crematorium. Land values surged. A photograph of Golders Green from 1920 shows an elegant high street lined with four-storey buildings and bustling with cars and buses.
The story of how London expanded so swiftly at the turn of the 20th century is one of financial ingenuity, bold risk-taking and low skulduggery. It is also the tale of one dauntless American who, though notorious in his time, is today unknown in the city he helped shape.
<h3>There are second acts in American lives</h3>
America was full of men on the make in the second half of the 19th century. As John Franch observes in "Robber Baron", a biography of Yerkes, he numbered among the "gilded generation" that also included Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Born in 1837, Yerkes grew up in an age of big business, when railways were stretching across the country like arteries and large enterprises springing up along them. By 1851, as Mr Franch enumerates, even the fairly rundown part of Philadelphia where the young Yerkes lived boasted three textile factories, a malt house, a machine shop and a sawmill.
A child who did not care much for books--but had a head for numbers--Yerkes thrived in this atmosphere. He was born into a reasonably well-to-do Quaker family; his father was president of a bank. An indifferent student, he finished his education at 17 to work for a brokerage, and by the age of 28 had set up his own bank and was acquiring a reputation as a canny businessman. Then, in 1871, a fire in Chicago and the ensuing stockmarket collapse undid him: Yerkes was found to have embezzled funds that he was holding for the city of Philadelphia. He was sent to prison for two years and four months, serving seven months.
"By the time I was 35 I had accumulated a fortune of some $1m," he later told an English journalist. "Then, by a stroke of ill luck, I lost it all...This, of course, is nothing extraordinary for Americans." He rebuilt his fortune by investing in the burgeoning tram (or "streetcar") business in Chicago in the late 1880s. His business methods were purposefully obscure: Yerkes would borrow cash, acquire leases and create networks of construction companies, operating companies and holding companies before issuing diluted stock. Bribery of officials was rife, as was the badmouthing of competitors. In one particularly Machiavellian move, described by Sidney Roberts, a historian, Yerkes constructed a tram line in the dead of night--and in four hours--so that fractious Chicago property-owners wouldn't be able to stop him.
Eventually he controlled hundreds of miles of tramway and railway. But his luck ran out again. Infuriated by Yerkes's badly lit trams and occasionally shoddy service, the citizens of Chicago revolted when he tried to renew his franchises. Club-wielding men protested. Local newspapers ran angry editorials: Yerkes was portrayed as a monopolising robber baron who had little regard for his passengers' comfort. Spurned, in 1899 he decided to leave the Midwest. He sold his shares for an inflated $20m and moved to New York, packing up his growing art collection (which included the first Rodin sculpture bought by an American, a sword that once belonged to Oliver Cromwell, and a few flashy portraits of Yerkes himself); he installed it, along with his second wife, in a mansion overlooking Central Park. To the delight of New York gossip columnists, he also set up his 19-year-old mistress, Emilie Grigsby, in a flat two blocks away.
Yerkes could have led an easy life in New York. He was 62 when he arrived, and admitted that he needed a rest. Photographs from the period show a sturdy, rather short man, with white whiskers and fashionably slicked hair, glaring at the camera. He looks fearsome, but also rather tired. His house in the city was magnificent: it had a two-storey conservatory full of rare birds, a penthouse theatre and a marble-clad hallway ornamented with a bust of Nero. It was far more fun to spend money in New York than in Chicago, he once quipped. But Yerkes could never settle anywhere for long. He soon decided to invest in London's transport network; he would spend the next five years travelling back and forth between America and Britain.
The move would help ruin him financially. It would also be the finest idea of his life.
<h3>Baron versus baron</h3>
In 1900 London was the world's largest city, with 6.5m inhabitants and streets thronged with omnibuses, hackney cabs and horse-drawn carriages. By the time Yerkes visited Hampstead Heath, three Underground lines were already dug and running: the Metropolitan, the District, and the City and South London line, which shuttled businessmen from Stockwell to King William Street in uncomfortable carriages known as "padded cells". But a series of plans for further lines--stretching up from Charing Cross in central London to Hampstead in the north, or from Elephant and Castle in the south-east to Regent's Park in the north-west--had stalled for lack of cash.
Yerkes's decision to invest was not driven by anglophilia. The government's tendency to meddle and the interminable parliamentary processes annoyed him. An "obsolete past" hung over the city like smog, he thought. Compared with Americans, Britons seemed sluggish. They took far too long to board a train, as if they "had a hundred years to do it in", Yerkes huffed. To a man known to work 18-hour days--getting up at five o'clock to cycle 12 miles in his knickerbockers--the locals could seem lazy. In 1903 he told a reporter at the New York Times: "The trouble with the British workman is that he does not work enough. If you pass through London or adjacent places on a Saturday afternoon you will be perfectly amazed by the number of men playing ball." He was willing to concede that "this is an enjoyable way to live. But it is a bit startling to a busy, hustling American." That sort of indolence helped give this particular hustling American his opportunity.
In New York Yerkes had met Thomas Reeves and H.H. Montague Smith, English businessmen who were looking for funding for the Charing Cross to Hampstead railway. Now part of the Underground's Northern line, this had been given parliamentary approval in 1893; a construction contract had been signed in 1897, but finance proved elusive. After his visit to Hampstead in August 1900 Yerkes paid £100,000 to the railway company and became its chairman. A new contract was signed, and two new bills put before Parliament to extend the line farther north to Golders Green and Archway.
As politicians pondered these proposals, and those submitted by rivals, Yerkes took over three other lines, actual and planned, among them the Great Northern, Brompton and Piccadilly railway, a proposed route from west London to Finsbury Park in the north-east (see map).
Altogether these projects would cost £16m. To raise the cash Yerkes created a new company, the Underground Electric Railways Company (UERL), enlisting a bank to help through the issuing of "profit-sharing secured notes".
Most investors were American, but Yerkes persuaded some wary Britons to chip in too. Before he built anything, however, Yerkes would have to see off an even grander American financier: John Pierpoint Morgan.
Morgan's son, J. Pierpoint Morgan junior, had wired his father details of a proposed underground line to run from Piccadilly to north-east London, tracing a similar route to Yerkes's Brompton and Piccadilly railway. Meanwhile London United Tramways (LUT), a separate outfit that operated trams, put a bid into Parliament to create a line serving two tram termini in west London. Morgan and the LUT joined forces to build a line that would stretch under the city from Hammersmith in the west to Tottenham in the north-east.
In 1902 Yerkes won parliamentary approval for his extension up to Golders Green and Archway, as well as for his Brompton and Piccadilly line. Oddly (since the two schemes were so similar) Morgan's plans were also approved; perhaps the MPs thought one of them was bound to collapse--an outcome that, inadvertently, they helped bring about. The politicians were concerned that only the lucrative, central part of Morgan's line would be built, so insisted that the whole thing, from Hammersmith to Tottenham, must be constructed. Still, when Parliament went into recess, it seemed that both the Yerkes and Morgan projects were viable.
But when Parliament returned Yerkes had acquired a majority interest in the LUT. This meant he could prevent it building its part of the Morgan line. The whole proposal promptly fell through. J.P. Morgan described Yerkes's manoeuvres as "the greatest rascality and conspiracy I have ever heard of." Scandalised politicians huffed about this "very dirty transaction".
<h3>Paradise by way of Golders Green</h3>
In the event Tottenham did not join the Underground network until the 1960s. All the same, Yerkes's cunning and determination were a boon to his adopted city. They meant work on his Underground lines began even as Parliament prevaricated and NIMBYs in Hampstead fretted that the Tube (as the system was soon known) would drain the Heath of moisture. If plans had been left to fester for ten more years, the rise of the motorbus would have made tunnelling under crowded streets seem even less worthwhile. As Christian Wolmar, a railway expert, points out, another deep-level Tube line did not open in London until 1968.
And the monopolistic instinct that got Yerkes booted out of Chicago served a better purpose in London. By the time of the first world war his firm, the UERL, then known as the Underground Group and run by Alfred Stanley (later Lord Ashfield), controlled all but one of the city's Tube lines, all three tram companies and the main bus operator. Its elegant roundel logo is still in use today. London's transport network became a comprehensive system, not a fractured, chaotic one. Rather than leaving stations to switch lines, passengers could zip down escalators to do so instead. This changed the way people got around the city. It also changed the way the city itself developed.
In 1900 Yerkes told a sceptical American journalist that "a generation hence London will be completely transformed...people will think nothing of living 20 miles or more from town, owing to electrified trains." This had started to happen in parts of the city where railway lines had already been built. Large Victorian houses clustered in places such as Clapham Junction, a south London neighbourhood home to a railway terminus since 1863. But Tube lines would encourage more people to move farther out. At a board meeting in 1903 (reported in The Economist), Yerkes asserted: "Cheap fares to the suburban districts is the only thing that will solve the problem [of overcrowding], and other Londons must be built up on the outskirts of London."
Other Londons were indeed built. Land values in Golders Green more than doubled between 1903 and 1904 alone. By 1908 the Underground Group put up posters showing a couple in their garden in Golders Green: a man in a waistcoat, his sleeves rolled up, waters sunflowers; his wife reclines in a deckchair as their child plays nearby. Below are lines from William Cowper's 1784 poem, "The Task", describing how pleasant it is to be at a "safe distance" from "the great Babel". The image is a precursor of the famous adverts that, after the first world war, touted "Metro-Land" as the bucolic domain of aspiring middle-class families.
<h3>Mind the gap</h3>
The three new lines that Yerkes championed all opened between March 1906 and June 1907. He did not live long enough to see any of them in operation. When he became ill with kidney disease in 1905 he defied his doctor's orders and kept a telephone by his bed. He also chaired meetings of his company, and gave newspaper interviews in which he yet again berated Londoners for being slow moving. But in November of that year he returned to America to die in the Waldorf Astoria hotel, with Miss Grigsby, his mistress, by his side.
British newspapers were generous towards the man "who revolutionised our old-fashioned methods of going to and fro". Americans were more scathing about his rakish behaviour: a serial philanderer, Yerkes cheated repeatedly on both his wives and on Miss Grigsby. His behaviour so outraged his contemporaries that when the journalist Theodore Dreiser based a trilogy of novels on Yerkes's life, he depicted him as a swarthy businessman who seduces female stenographers in his oak-panelled office, and has to break down his wife's door when she tries to strangle one of his mistresses.
Americans were also unimpressed by his apparent lack of philanthropy, which seems mostly to have consisted of splashing out $23,000 on an electric fountain in Chicago in 1890 and, two years later, giving just over $300,000 to fund what was then the world's largest telescope. (As a result, a crater on the moon is named after him.) Yerkes was startlingly blunt about his motives: "Whatever I do, I do not from any sense of duty, but to satisfy myself."
Yet, in a paradox characteristic of many voracious tycoons, he also wanted to leave a legacy. Initially, that seemed unlikely. Many of his other business schemes were ditched. Angry creditors contested his will. Proposals for his mansion in New York to become a museum fell through, and it was sold off along with his art collection. In the 1930s the mansion was bulldozed and replaced with a modern apartment block. Plans to establish a hospital in his name were also scuppered. Yerkes once told his shareholders that the Underground would be "the crowning success" of his life. But, when his lines eventually opened, passenger numbers disappointed, and even that hope looked forlorn.
After his death, though, the concern was saved from bankruptcy by Lord Ashfield, who ploughed money into advertisements, boosting the Tube's popularity. Yerkes's attention to details, such as the decor of his tile-clad stations, survived him, as did his vision of a city surrounded by densely packed suburbs. And, these days, his method for realising that vision is back in fashion.
One of Yerkes's lines is currently being extended; meanwhile Crossrail, a completely new project that scythes through London, is scheduled to open in 2016. Both of these schemes are funded partly by private capital: austerity has made it near-impossible to fund big infrastructure projects with public money alone. The city is coming full circle, suggests Isabel Dedring, London's deputy mayor for transport: back to a model of development based more on Yerkes-style independent finance.
Unlike J.P. Morgan, Yerkes's feted arch rival, today few know of this strange, extravagant individual. His only real monument does not bear his name. At Golders Green station--which still looks much the same as when Yerkes's team built it in 1907--a small brown plaque near the electronic ticket gates notes the date the building opened, and that some original features remain, such as ornate timber handrails in the stairwells. But it does not mention the man who ensured that the station, along with the suburb that blossomed around it, got built.
Click <a href="https://subscriptions.economist.com/nwcd">here</a> to subscribe to The Economist

The Vision And Cunning Of An Unknown American Changed The Shape Of London

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">ReutersMonica Lewinsky.</div></div></div>In her own words, Monica Lewinsky is the "patient zero" of public shaming.She says her experience of being publicly chastised for having an affair with the most powerful man in the world in the 1990s - the former US president Bill Clinton - has shown both how society can be biased against women and also that it's possible to act as an individual within it to "change the narrative."Lewinsky was one of the most highly-anticipated guests at the FT's Women at the Top event in London. Her name still evokes the scandal and political fallout for the final years of the Clinton administration.What happened to both Lewinsky and Clinton after the events of 1995 and 1997, when Lewinsky said she had nine sexual encounters with the former President, is telling in how society treats women and men differently in a scandal.Clinton published an autobiography called "My Life" and remained active in <keyword id="6358883" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Politics">politics</keyword>, despite the attempt to impeach him, campaigning for Democrat candidates such as US president Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, as well as his wife Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2008 and this year.Meanwhile, Lewinsky "went from a completely private person to a publicly humiliated worldwide," she said. The 43-year-old still gets reminded nearly daily about the affair 20 years ago. She said she has been subject of "pretty cruel jokes, my reputation wasn't shut down with an arrow, I was publicly stoned with malicious vitriol, ridiculed, humiliated, marginalised, and objectified. If that doesn't put you in therapy for life, you don't know what will."She also outlined how it was impossible to have a normal career after the scandal and the way people responded to how she should get a job was beyond humiliating.One female potential employer "told me I should rent out my mouth" for a living, said Lewinsky. The affair, and subsequent humiliation, served to eradicate her credentials as a graduate.At the FT event, no one was allowed to record her speech. We were not allowed to ask her opinion on the US elections, where Hillary Clinton is the democrat presidential candidate, nor were we allowed to report on the question and answer session. She said she didn't want to be pulled into any internet fallout again.<h2>Resurfacing after retreating from the public eye</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">The White House/APOfficial White House photo taken Nov. 17, 1995 from page 3179 of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's report on President Clinton, showing President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky at the White House.</div></div></div>It was not until 2014, that she resurfaced in to the public eye and decided to "change her ending" by talking out about internet shaming for the Vanity Fair magazine in an essay titled "Shame and Survival." From there she turned herself from a victim to a warrior in social activism and gave one of the most revered <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/monica-lewinsky-is-giving-a-ted-talk-2015-3">Ted Talks over the last two years about shaming in 2015.</a> It was viewed 7.5 million times in the first year of its release.Earlier this year, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/16/monica-lewinsky-shame-sticks-like-tar-jon-ronson">Jon Ronson, the author of "So You've Been Publicly Shamed" got a rare one-on-one in-depth interview with Lewinsky.</a> It highlighted the dark side of the internet and how greater connectivity through social media has produced a monster of judgment, shaming. It showed the public's propensity to tear-down individuals for a mistake or a misconception without little acknowledgement about how it will ruin that person's life.Near the beginning of her speech, Lewinsky did an experiment that highlighted how ruinous public shaming is:"Hold your hands up if you made a mistake when you were in your 20s or 30s that regret badly?"Everyone in the room held up their hand."Now keep your hand up if everyone in the room knows what that mistake is."No one held up their hand. "Some people make a mistake at 22. I fell in love with the wrong person. The wrong person was my boss. However your boss probably wasn't the president of the United States. Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of that mistake and regret it completely. I learned the devastating consequences," she said."But what happened after that, I was swept up in a political and legal maelstrom and investigation that unfolded for years. In earlier years, our news would have been consumed by reading a newspaper or magazine, listening to the radio, or watching television, but that wasn't my fate. Instead this scandal was brought to you with the digital revolution."Over the years, we have seen this example of public shaming grow to epic proportions, after "patient zero" Lewinsky.As Ronson highlights in his poignant book there are a number of normal, private individuals that have been figuratively hung, drawn and quartered by the public for either making a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/dec/20/social-media-twitter-online-shame">bad joke</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/21/internet-shaming-lindsey-stone-jon-ronson">misconception over a picture</a>, a <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2015/03/jon_ronson_on_jonah_lehrer_a_new_book_says_we_were_too_hard_on_the_disgraced.html">mistake that they are never allowed to forget</a>, or been shamed <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/30/books/review-so-youve-been-publicly-shamed-delves-into-infamy-in-the-age-of-social-media.html">for personal sexual preferences</a>. Most people he cites have yet to see a full recovery from the public shaming, such as <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/lindsey-stone-2012-11">Lindsey Stone</a> who posted a <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/lindsey-stone--so-youve-been-publicly-shamed">photo on Facebook in 2012 that showed her joking around at a war memorial</a> or Justine Sacco, a <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/jon-ronson-on-twitters-decline-2016-4">30-year-old PR woman from New York who made a joke on Twitter about AIDS</a>. Recovery means not having to be afraid that their shame would be found out, and that the death and rape threats would stop. These are usually women. <div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images</div></div></div>Those who have been able to recover include <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/30/books/review-so-youve-been-publicly-shamed-delves-into-infamy-in-the-age-of-social-media.html">Max Mosley, who successfully sued for the publication of his prostitution scandal</a>, as well monologist <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/04/01/396384141/jon-ronson-has-nothing-to-be-ashamed-of-but-what-about-the-rest-of-us">Mike Daisey who admitted to lying about </a><a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/04/01/396384141/jon-ronson-has-nothing-to-be-ashamed-of-but-what-about-the-rest-of-us">visits to Chinese factories that make Apple products but still enjoys a vibrant career in theatre.</a>Lewinsky said that women are treated very differently in the aftermath of shaming."I get it. It was easy to forget [as someone shaming her] that that the person [like me] was dimensional and once unbroken," she said."Fortunately, my life has changed over the last two years that I am profoundly grateful. Unfortunately, I am reminded of those themes every day and how this [shaming] is universal, especially for women and by women. At a professional women's conference, I was asked to be a speaker by one one of the organisers. But then the keynote speaker, a woman, gave the ultimatum of either she speaks and I don't speak, or I speak and she doesn't.""The organiser said to her 'what would you say if we invited the former President of the United States (referring to Bill Clinton) to speak at the event.' She replied 'well that's different.' And now I explore what 'that's different' means. What it means is that two equals in the situation, the treatment is different for [men and women.]"There are certain kinds of shame and punishment that are more for women than men. How I wish we could sue for hypocrisy. But some of the most outrageous things said against me have been from other women."Talking about the "rent your mouth out" comment, she said that "if someone asked her how she would respond if someone said that about her daughter, grand-daughter, or friend, who she say 'that's different?'""For a women we pay higher prices [for a mistake], we always take the blame which becomes a heavy wagon of shame and hypocrisy." <h2>The "paradox" of the internet - how it is liberating and imprisoning</h2>Lewinsky pointed out that the "paradox" of the internet is to blame for the public shame movement. The internet never forgets what you have done or a lie, rumour, or misrepresentation of who you are."The internet has been a force for good and the spread of ideas, which has been empowering and has brought the world together," said Lewinsky."But it is also a paradox. With the miracle of communication and connection, it has also made us more isolated than we have had before. The internet is liberating but also imprisoning. The internet has brought out the trolls, gossips, shamers, and cruelty to others. There isn't anything new to the power of humiliation, it's just the breadth of the reach. It is enhanced shaming."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">GettyMonica Lewinsky attends the gala screening of 'Despite The Falling Snow' on March 23, 2016 in London, United Kingdom.</div></div></div>She points out that there will always be gossip offline as well as online but the way gossip translates into profit now can put a very "public price to public shaming." "Gossip websites, paparazzi, reality programming, some news organisations and hackers, get traffic [from shame]. It creates a permissive environment for online cyber bullies," she added.She cited Professor Nicolaus Mills who wrote a paper called "Culture of Humiliation" (June, 2014) and how humiliation has another kind of price tag, "a price not just at the cost of the victim, but the profit of preying on them.""We have been violated for raw material, mined, packaged, and sold for a profit. It's about clicks, the more shame, the more clicks, the clicks the more advertising dollars. The more we click, the more numb we get. We are numb to someone suffering off the back off someone's financial gain [from shame]. The more we click, the more we make a choice of saturating public shaming and behaviour like online harassment."The future seems bleak. But Lewinsky's social activism is infectious and being probably one of the most humiliated people on the planet at one point, she highlights how we as a society can take steps of reclaiming our identities and help mend the destruction caused by public shaming."The shift is not simple or easy but shame cannot survive without empathy. I have seen some very dark days in my life but empathy from professionals, strangers, friends and family have helped me [survive]. Empathy from one person can make a difference. There is power in small numbers, as minorities can influence to be upstanders [to a cause]," said Lewinsky."They can stand up for people online that tear us down and help build us back up, encourage compassionate debate."I have been asked why am I sticking my head above the parapet now, and I say 'because it's time.' It's time to stop tip-toeing around the past and time to take back my narrative. I say it is not just about saving ourselves, it is also that you can survive. It won't be painless but you can decide your own ending both online and offline to be in a more compassionate world." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-terrorist-attack-bombing-unsolved-2016-9">Wall Street's deadliest terror attack remains unsolved after 96 years</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="9zdjV4bTqijpDyuE_LY2Cj9j8BKXGmRx" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

Monica Lewinsky gave one of the most powerful speeches I have ever heard on being the 'patient zero' of public shame

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>Before the internet, wedding-centric media was largely restricted to&#xa0;bridal magazines and the final scenes of romantic comedies.But now, all it takes to plummet down a white-lace-lined wedding rabbit hole is a single hashtag, video, or blog post surfacing on your social media feeds.&#xa0;Back in pre-internet times, losing yourself&#xa0;in the details of someone else's big day took commitment. You had to go to a store, select a magazine, and pay money for it. You had to get off your butt and head to the movie theatre to get your fix from a rom com. Even "Say Yes to the Dress"-esque TV shows were few and far between.It&#xa0;took a lot of&#xa0;effort back then to lose an entire afternoon to wedding media.Now, it's easy! If you're susceptible to the charms of the wedding industrial complex, a single click can get you&#xa0;going. You'll find yourself on a&#xa0;Pinterest board, then click over to a lifestyle blog, then scroll through slideshow after slideshow until you realize you've lost an hour or more&#xa0;passively consuming other people's weddings.Magazines, movies, and TV shows all end, but online wedding content doesn't.&#xa0;A lot of wedding content&#xa0;is created with&#xa0;a practical use in mind, serving&#xa0;two&#xa0;audiences: people who are planning their weddings and people who want to reminisce about the weddings they've already participated in. You have the Pinterest boards and the bridal blogs for the soon-to-bes, and the meticulously edited videos and Instagram hashtags for the just-marrieds.But there's a third demographic that all of this media serves, even though none of it is built with expressly them in mind: The unabashed wedding enthusiasts who&#xa0;get an escapist thrill from all of it.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div>And I'm a little bit ashamed to say that I'm a member of that third demographic. I help keep the online wedding planning industry afloat not because I'm getting married any time soon, but because I am obsessed with other people's weddings.I wouldn't be caught dead buying a bridal magazine or bingeing&#xa0;"My Fair Wedding" reruns on Netflix. But I've done enough secret googling of wedding stuff that&#xa0;Facebook seems to think I'm engaged. The site now surfaces ads for engagement rings and wedding dress&#xa0;retailers&#xa0;like Anthropologies' <a href="http://www.bhldn.com/">BHLDN next to my news feed.</a>Most embarrassingly, I've caught myself - more than once - scrolling mindlessly, zombie-like, back to 2010 on the Facebook page of someone I barely know, just so I can watch her perfect wedding video for the 20th time.It's weird and it's embarrassing and it makes me feel like a&#xa0;stock character in a chick flick. But I know I'm not alone. So I put out a call for other women who are as obsessed as I am and asked them what motivates this online behavior.<h2>The production quality connoisseur</h2>Kim Renfro, who also works at Tech&#xa0;Insider, always thought she'd be the "cool aunt" who traveled the world and owned a cat or two. She had no plans to become a fussy, white-wedding-obsessed bride.But then she discovered&#xa0;<a href="https://vimeo.com/26502282">this video</a>&#xa0;online. It brought her to tears the first time she watched it,&#xa0;and she joined the ranks of the wedding-obsessed.&#xa0;<div><div class="vimeo-embed-container"></div></div>&#xa0;Now, Renfro has become obsessed with the Vimeo page for Paperback Weddings, the company that produced that first fateful clip. It&#xa0;<a href="https://vimeo.com/paperbackweddings">has over 70 videos</a> and Renfro has watched them all."The reason they draw me is mostly the cinematography style and soundtrack," she said. "They use music I love, like Bon Iver and Jose Gonzalez. They are also based in California, my home state, so some of the wedding locations are very familiar and tangible to me."The videos all have the same format: a minute or so establishing the bride's character, a minute or so spent on the groom, and then all the pomp and circumstance of the wedding itself. Paperback Weddings has effectively figured out how to distill every wedding-centric romantic comedy to the only 10 minutes anybody actually wants to watch.But for Renfro, Paperback Weddings will remain a fantasy. She and her boyfriend are planning to get married in the next year or so - but she finds the company's $12,000 price tag per video to be prohibitively expensive.Don't expect her to stop bookmarking&#xa0;Paperback Weddings' Vimeo page, though.&#xa0;Her interest&#xa0;in the company was never supposed to be practical or planning-oriented to begin with.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div><h2>The girl with a&#xa0;million family weddings</h2>Maryrose Mullen's wedding addiction began in college, when she attended a family wedding - &#xa0;and all its ancillary events - as either a guest or a bridesmaid every single year.&#xa0;Totally hooked, she then switched to a "Wedding Sunday" weekly binge of reality&#xa0;shows like "My Fair Wedding" and "Bridezilla."Then, the people she'd grown up with started getting married and posting on Facebook about it. That's when her obsession moved online. Now, she can be found lurking deep in the Instagram feeds&#xa0;and Facebook albums of strangers and acquaintances alike.Mullen&#xa0;loves the little details&#xa0;of weddings, she said, as well as the feeling of "dropping in" on someone else's&#xa0;special day - again, like the SparkNotes version of a romantic comedy."Videos give a sense of the atmosphere while editing&#xa0;out the un-fun parts a wedding day entails," she said. "You get the first dance and the wacky bridal party entrances, but don't have&#xa0;to wait around an hour between the ceremony and cocktail hour."One highlight of her career as a wedding video voyeur was a stream of Giants players' weddings that she watched through Instagram and Snapchat. Without those two platforms, she never would've even known they'd all gotten hitched. But because of social media, she found herself clocking every detail."I don't feel weird about it usually," she said. "Sometimes I'll venture too far down the rabbit hole and realize I'm watching a video of the cousin of my best friend's&#xa0;sophomore year roommate's sorority sister."But, she pointed out, this content is posted on a public platform, so&#xa0;it was meant to be shared and viewed - "even by lunatics like me," she said.&#xa0;"It's cheesy, but I love seeing other people's joy, even in short spurts."<h2>The woman&#xa0;who&#xa0;thinks&#xa0;choreographed dances are&#xa0;awesome</h2>Michelle Zarella isn't just into wedding videos - she has a special place in her heart for the brides and grooms who choreograph their first dance as man and wife."There has literally yet to be one that hasn't made me cry," she said. Here's one of her favorites:<div></div>She also loves this classic of the genre:<div></div>Michelle loves the effort people put forth when planning and executing these choreographed dances and pointed out that "some of them actually kill it.""I get emotional because beneath all of the excessive planning and cost, there is the element of people's families coming together to celebrate what is hopefully one of the most important days of their lives," she said.Michelle is engaged, but she won't be recording her whole wedding on video."I'm only having the first dance with some shots of our guests and that's it," she said.&#xa0;This has to do with Michelle's other favorite part of watching someone else's wedding video: "I like to ... pick out the family stereotype (drunk uncles, weirdos, rent-a-dates, etc.), and get a laugh. I would ideally like to not have to do the same for my own."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div><h2 class="embed-spacer">The lady&#xa0;who got ordained&#xa0;</h2>Actor and comedian <a href="http://jenkeefe.com/">Jen Keefe</a> loves love so much, she's become ordained to perform wedding ceremonies. Weddings and love are a hobby for her; she loves reading books of love letters and, yes, doing lots of online research."Part of this hobby includes poring over wedding videos, and specifically for me, engagement videos on YouTube," she said.&#xa0;Here's one of her favorites:<div></div>She's even found herself watching these videos alone at home on a Friday night - "not because I'm ferociously masochistic but because I identify strongly with that type of expression of love," she said.She's moved to tears much of the time.&#xa0;"When, in videos of wedding ceremonies, people read vows which they have personally written, I am reliably reaching for tissues," she said.Part of her love for wedding videos might be the hope that one day she'll be the one on the altar, she admitted. But like Zarella, she won't be offering up her own hypothetical wedding video for public consumption. And she doesn't envision herself planning the whole thing meticulously."The obsessing over ring cuts, save-the-dates, number of bridesmaids, bachelor parties, and registries is something I want zero part of," she said, "and has nothing to do with the core of celebration that a marriage signifies: the finding of requited, unconditional love between two people."<h2>An overlooked market?</h2>If I didn't have frenemies' wedding hashtags to click on every weekend, I probably wouldn't have much contact with the idea of nuptials beyond physically attending weddings and watching movies that occasionally feature&#xa0;marriage as a plot point.But thanks to social media, my fellow online voyeurs and I are part of an untapped market of women who are voraciously consuming wedding content. Even though none of the blogs, videos, or Instagram posts we love were created with us in mind, our pageviews, likes, and site visits are an&#xa0;unsung&#xa0;faction of the community that keeps&#xa0;a lot of these wedding-centric sites and businesses humming.And I can't help but think that the first website to capitalize on this demographic is probably going to make a mint - for better or worse. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cara-delevingne-paper-towns-model-acting-career-2015-7">'Paper Towns' star Cara Delevingne says her acting career isn't a fluke</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="ZsbTRmdjoo7BEgwWFJbyne6gWbCRfApo" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

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