Last week, The Paris Review's blog ran "Harvard and Class," a piece by Misha Glouberman (co-authored by Sheila Heti) about the challenges of dealing with class after attending "an upper-middle-class Jewish day school" in Canada and then going to Harvard—which, hmmm! As two recent Harvard grads ourselves, we wanted to offer a slightly different perspective on class, race and the Ivy League, as well as what it’s like to be offered $40 by your peers to remain invisible, please. READ MORE

"At the dawn of independent film, growing out of avant-garde culture, the movies reveled in their outsider status, portraying edgy misfits living on the cusps of society, in films like Stranger Than Paradise. Somewhere along the way, however, America’s self-styled outsider arts, the 'indie' movement in all its manifestations across film, music and fashion, not only made their peace with the capitalist hierarchy, but began to celebrate it. Across culture, the 'indie' world filed for emancipation from its downtrodden, protest-heavy forbears, and became something cloying, cutesy and simpering. Once upon a time, the sight of a man walking across the screen of an independent film in a $500 silk shirt was immediate shorthand for the presence of evil. One might as well have cued the Darth Vader theme music when such a figure appeared, walking on, in all likelihood, to lay off the film’s hero from his dead end job, provoking his journey of self-discovery. Now the man in the $500 shirt is likely to be the film’s hero, and if anything we are meant to feel sympathy for the emptiness all that glitters brings." READ MORE

"Japan" is the explanation that Bert Cooper offers his British bosses for why they're standing in their socks inside his office. Japan and our role in WWII can also be offered as the explanation for what cinched America's role as the then-new empire. It must be a bit awkward for citizens of the waning imperial power that was England to strip down to their socks together. (Did you notice the armor lurking in the corner of Bert's office? And the buffed knight's suit standing guard in Lane's? Empire-building does come with some marvelous accessories.) READ MORE

A shocking new British study suggests anecdotal evidence that rich people are more likely to succeed than poor people! The report found evidence of "informal recruitment systems," by which they mean "internships and work placement," which function as "a back-door for better-off, better-connected youngsters." (PICTURED: teens vying for one of these "internships" with posh English fucker Hugh Grant.) America, turn your back on this foreign, class-ridden horror-state!

For many obvious reasons, this is maybe my favorite photo series in the world.

From the Penny Illustrated Paper, deep in the bowels of the British Library, comes this 100-year-old nugget about the relations between the classes. (This small humor moment is a birthday present for the delightful Anna Holmes, the tireless editrix of Jezebel.)