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This week, I flew to New York, trying to get a job, unpaid internship or slave contract in blogs or new media or whatever we’re calling it these days. (Will blog for rent. In Brooklyn?) I caught a 5:05 flight out of LaGuardia back to the safety of my college apartment, where parents don’t hassle you about typos in your resume — they don’t know what Tumblr — or the seediness of your boat shoes. I sat at the gate, watching some young anchor on CNN explain hashtags to people who watch CNN, as if understanding what #HItsunami meant was going to help that helicopter chopping away at the sky, camera aimed at a calm sea, waiting for the oncoming destruction. A friend picked me up at the airport.

When I opened the door to my apartment, I found it empty of people, filled with smoke. Music blasted from my bedroom, on the first floor, and the door was locked. There were scraps of newspaper on the floor.

It was then that I realized what had happened.

A few weeks before, inspired by the antics of Dash Snow and Co., I had challenged some friends of mine to throw a newspaper-filled rager in my bedroom, without me knowing ahead of time. I wanted a hamster den; I didn’t want to be prepared for it. Apparently, a moderately successful round of interviews in New York — with blogs or new media, or whatever we’re calling it these days, no less — was enough of an occasion for the boys to shred thousands of student papers, buy a shit ton of booze and invite all the hottest girls they knew to my bedroom, which is no bigger than a downtown studio. And they even maintained their silence on Twitter!

I banged the flimsy door to my bedroom, having only a vague notion of what I’d find on the other side. Once my eyes adjusted, I was greeted by 50 people, crammed in the 15-by-15 room, lit only by a strobe light, singing along to “Sexy Bitch.” I took a long pull of cheap vodka. It was 7:20 p.m.

No, I don’t know what will be on the other side of that door. Am I going to be getting coffee and tending shaft for a few years before I give up, scratching my head and wondering what the hell happened? Yes, the many of us elite college-attending millennials who secretly believe we’re the next Fitzgerald are probably fucked when it comes to getting paid to write anything. But I’ll be damned if any one tells us we don’t know how to throw a kickass party.

More (original) hamster den photos.