What is Socialite Slapdown?

Socialite Tinsley Mortimer, in the midst of the purported catfight between herself and her personal Eve, Olivia Palermo, lamented to a reporter recently that the blogs and newspapers believe Manhattan society is like the schoolyard: all hair-pulling and vicious insideriness. It's not like that, she said.

Whether or not it is, one thing even she must agree on is that the rules of Manhattan society are hard to define, hard to know, and therefore difficult not to break. In Edith Wharton's time, gentlemen and ladies made exquisite studies of right and wrong behavior for New York society, and reveled in their difficulties.

Perhaps the reason we like so much to read about direct competition and conflict among socialites is that we would like to imagine that being a member of Manhattan society is that straightforward, and that unpleasant, a proposition. We could participate but we choose not to.

Around this time of year, people start thinking in brackets. So as a service to New York's great unwashed, we thought we'd provide this method for helping the city define what it values in society.

Yes, this is a bracket competition in which we have seeded 64 of Manhattan's bright young things, and made them compete somewhat arbitrarily against each other in a series of rounds to see who comes out on top.