Many of them were nervous—“This is my first time talking in public since college,” said Matt Elkin of the band The So So Glass—and reading aloud and using a microphone also proved challenging for them. Their talks covered similar territory—bar fights, Nazi skinheads, nasty hangovers, mountains of cocaine, parents who just didn’t understand, tattoos, going on tour with the band, and being “hardcore”—and they name-dropped like their lives (er, cred) depended on it. Evan Smith Rakoff, an editor at Poets and Writers, spoke so slowly that you could hear the PBR cans popping open like fireworks, whereas others spoke so fast that we aren’t sure of their names, let alone what they were talking about.

Maura Johnston, an editor for Village Voice who admitted that she “never felt very punk,” read a story off of her iPhone about how she dressed up as a punk for Halloween in 1984—perhaps a stretch, but a crowd favorite. Mr. Elkin’s tale was not a story (it was a letter that one of his girlfriend’s friends had written in middle school), but was damn funny. The last speakers of the night, three twenty-somethings from the band The Beets, were entertaining and more than a little funny, but they were also quite drunk. And if that’s not punk, then we don’t know what is.

Click through our slideshow for photos of the evening.

Photos: Marta Franco

In this twisted spirit, the long-running, wildly popular DOs and DON'Ts column—photos of unfortunate, real street fashion captioned harshly by VICE’s editors—was born. It has become “the little franchise that could" for the magazine and website, Mr. Alvi said.

And at the launch party for a new compilation anthology, DOs & DON'Ts Book 2, on Tuesday night, we brought our camera to the packed Powerhouse Arena in DUMBO and documented those celebrating the bawdy column that spawned many imitations (including our slideshow, below the cut).

About the likelihood that DOs and DON’Ts has hurt more than a few feelings during its run, the column’s editor, Thomas Morton, was unapologetic. "I don't really have any morals, so nothing really stops me,” he said. “If they're wearing bad pants, then that's reason enough. But it's a case by case basis and basically depends on if I'm hungover and what type of hangover it is."

Throughout the course of the three-hour event, a hundred or more hipsters, wannabe hipsters, and a few out-of-place Manhattanites (that’s what you get when you put Cat Marnell in charge of manning the door) wandered in. The new book was on sale for $20, but according to the lone geek manning the cash register, no one had purchased a copy. “They’re here for the party and free drinks,” he said.

All photos by Spencer Rothman.

Ukuleles in McCarren Park
Name: Rick Bruner
Age: 47
Occupation: Market research
What are New York ukulele players like?
"A lot of us know each other here. It's a small community. We're an unpretentious group as far as musicians go."
How do you choose what songs to play?
"The mark of a great song is if it can be covered on a ukulele."

Percussion in Soho Square
Name: Mika Godbole
Age: 32
Occupation: Musician (percussionist)
Is it hard to keep time in the experimental piece you’re playing today, Frederic Rzewski's “Les Moutons de Panurge”?
“It looks easy, but it’s harder than you think. You really have to concentrate, and when you’re in the moment, you’re like, ‘Oh my god. Oh my god.’ The instructions are that if you get lost to stay lost. So you hear people zooming by you, and you’re like, ‘Wait I’m not with them, but I’m with them. But wait. Wait. No!’ You’re trying to catch up, but you can’t. So it’s this really cool experience. It’s my first time. So I guess I’m like a ‘Mouton’ virgin.”

Guitars in Union Square
Name: Damon Shelton
Age: 31
Occupation: Audio engineer; has been playing guitar for almost three years
How do you feel when you play guitar?
"Playing guitar is relaxing. I mean, it's time consuming, but in a good way. It's mainly relaxing. As you can see, music is the universal language. Look at all of the different people here. You don't even have to speak English to enjoy it."

Guitars in Union Square
Name: Irina Hernandez
Age: 16
Occupation: Student; guitar player in a band called Silentium (as of four days ago!)
Why did you choose to pick up the guitar?
"I love everything about guitar, especially the creativity you can exude. I wanna be the next Jason Becker [a metal guitarist], but more than that I just want everyone to play music. It brings a feeling in you that you can't feel anywhere else."

Bagpipes in Herald Square
Name: Don Ross
Affiliation: Performs with his group, the New York Scottish, and has been playing the bagpipes for 20 years
What’s it like to be in a bagpipe band?
“It’s fun. We have a variety of Scottish and Irish tunes and a few other kinds of tunes."
How are you coping with this weather?
“I’m just letting the breeze blow up my kilt.”

It wasn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to him—a few years ago he had to shack up with his mom when a business plan fell through and once he irreparably damaged his car by loading it with too much stuff—but it was one of the first things he couldn’t fix on his own. Why? Because he doesn’t speak that language, he said.  “I don’t speak nerd code.”

So, he's not tech savvy. But he is the king of retro, the sultan of skating, the heart and soul behind an ingenious event: Down and Derby, a roller-skating dance party held once a month at Dekalb Market in Brooklyn.

But this wasn’t the case six years ago. Mr. Masi, a Pittsburgh native, moved to New York City to pursue a career in business and marketing. For years he worked for Red Bull, starting at the bottom as part of the street marketing team and slowly ascending the ranks to the position of on-premise manager for the five boroughs. “It was an awesome job,” he said, one that he enjoyed and had every intention of keeping, even after he started throwing roller skating parties. “I never expected this to happen,” he said of his complete career change. “Nope, never.”

But it did. His early parties started in Pittsburgh in empty warehouses with temporary, handmade rinks, free booze (because they had no liquor license), less than a hundred pairs of skates, and more than 800 attendees a night. Over the next few years, as word of his parties grew so, too, did their venues. Down and Derby parties are still held in Pittsburgh on a monthly basis, but now they have expanded to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Denver, Boston, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Miami and, soon, Nashville. In 2008 and 2009, Mr. Masi brought roller-skating to the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, and in 2010 and 2011, he brought it to Coachella. He’s held parties in casinos, Beauty Bar locations, outdoor campgrounds and hotel lobbies. He’s been sponsored by Scion and Evian, Red Bull and Saucony. Sometimes his parties have themes—hair metal, the 1950s—and other times they have weird props—freight elevators, chairs on wheels. And the music is never the same. “I trust the DJs,” Mr. Masi said. “I let them play what they want.”

One thing you can always count on at Down and Derby is the old-school skates. Because most people don’t own quad skates, Mr. Masi brings a few hundred pairs, from his own collection, to rent out at each event. But amassing these skates was no easy feat. For the last four years he’s been scouring the Internet, utilizing Craigslist and eBay, and calling skate rinks that are going out of business in the hopes of acquiring more skates. “It’s a constant search,” he said, one that continues to this day. In fact, the difficulty of finding skates is one of the main reasons why he believes no one else has bought into the roller skating party trend. “It’s just so hard to find them,” he said.

Outlandish dress is the other constant at his parties. Without fail, there is a preponderance of booty shorts and headbands, knee socks and neon, crazy printed tights and sunglasses. “The dress code is fun for them,” Mr. Masi said. “A lot of people go out of their way to dress pretty awesome and I think getting ready for the party is an event itself.”

Last Friday, Mr. Masi held the second Down and Derby skating party at the Dekalb Market in downtown Brooklyn. As expected, all sorts of characters attended the event. There was a tan old guy in the white bell-bottoms; a hipster in a one-piece jumpsuit, striped socks, and red headband; a gaggle of girls in American Apparel short shorts, neon tanks, and, of course, headbands; a woman in Yoko Ono sunglasses; a guy in swim trunks; a couple who tried to dance-skate; a baby boomer who tried to roller-skate-break-dance; a couple of first-daters who stood on the sidelines and watched; newbies who fell on their butts; stiffer newbies who skated like robots; a dude in the sneakers that had wheels; and experienced roller derby players who showed off their skills.

The wood plank floors at Dekalb Market made it easy for skaters to get around and the assortment of food venues and picnic tables provided refuge for those who needed a break. As the sky darkened, strings of light lit up the main skating area and infectious disco tunes cooed from the speakers. People fell, but no one laughed at them. They were in party mode, partaking in a dance nirvana, and well aware of the fact that they, too, might fall.

Asked why so many people are attracted to his events, Mr. Masi proffered a few theories. Most everyone likes to dance, but the appeal of this event is also nostalgic. “It’s like your fourth grade birthday party,” said Mr. Masi, speaking from personal experience. “Everyone’s been to a birthday at least one time when they were a kid at the roller rink.”

He theorizes there’s a second possible nostalgia source: “Some of the cats that come here might have been rave children in the 90s that kind of grew up,” he said. “And all of the new rave babies. They don’t know what quad skates are, but they can sense the fun.”

So far it seems to be working. Until September, Mr. Masi will continue hosting monthly Down and Derby events at Dekalb Market, and will start searching for a new venue in the fall.

“I keep waiting for the bottom to fall out,” he said, remarking on how lucky he’s been. “But out of six years and [the website crashing] is the only bad luck I’ve had?” Mr. Masi said. “I’ll take that any day.”

Grand prize-winning team, Everynone, was too embarrassed to reveal the budget of their winning film, "Symmetry," but now that they have $25,000, future funding shouldn't be a problem. (Ryan McCune / Patrick McMullan Studios)

Perfection is overrated. It’s boring and predictable and uninspiring. But imperfection? Now that’s fun.

Take for instance last night’s 2012 Vimeo Awards show. Within the first few minutes, the audio crapped out. Awkward silence ensued.  The light projections turned on and off sporadically.  Jokes were occasionally lost. Awkward laughter ensued.  The audio crapped out again.  Some award presenters missed their cues.  Others read verbatim off the teleprompters.

Imperfection might be, um, imperfect, but it is also endearing and refreshing. And, given that this was only Vimeo’s second semi-annual award show, we’ll cut them some slack. After all, it wasn’t the show that people were there for, it was the films. And not just any films: user-generated online films.

For those not in the know, Vimeo is an online video sharing platform. Like YouTube, it is open to the public, but that’s about all they have in common. For one thing, Vimeo often curates content to feature, which means that a team of editors regularly sorts through the collection to highlight what Vimeo president Dae Mellencamp said are “interesting, inspiring, different, and unique” films. Since 2007 the films on the site have also been shown in high definition, making Vimeo the first site of its kind to do so.

But Vimeo also does something else: it encourages fledgling filmmakers (not just new parents and cat owners) to go forth and create. “This is where we believe the next generation of great filmmakers are,” Ms. Mellencamp told The Observer last night. “Their work will be the work that millions watch. It’s not just a niche thing. Amazing filmmakers come to the site.”

To award said amazing filmmakers, Vimeo holds an award show every 18 months. And, because they only started doing this in 2010, this was only their second awards show, hence the handful of blunders, which, remember, we found quite endearing.

But the people at Vimeo are not dolts. They know there were a few mistakes. “We’ve learned a lot from what happened tonight,” Vimeo festival director Jeremy Boxer said. “But I think the most important thing is that we’re all very confident that we were making the right decisions. Sometimes things just happen.”

Indeed they do. And fortunately, Vimeo is pretty good at rolling with the punches. After their 2010 awards show, the team decided that they needed more categories to adequately represent the many genres of films listed on their site. So they added three more. They thought their award trophy—a huge, serif font “V”—was too shiny and it’s base too flimsy. So they designed a new one. For more space, they moved the event to NYU's Skirball Center. And instead of a host, they decided to try something new.

“We’ve always wanted to push the boundaries of what we do,” Mr. Boxer said. This year the Vimeo team took a risk and hired two improvisational performers: comedian/musician Reggie Watts and British beat boxing D.J., Darren Foreman, aka Beardyman. Weird, yes, but also kind of brilliant. Booty-bouncing, bass-blaring club music was a welcome accompaniment. “It’s difficult to break the repetition of an award show,” Mr. Boxer said, “and our idea was to kind of have these different elements to break it up with the different forms that you wouldn’t have in a normal award show.”

This year, Vimeo received over 14,000 entries from filmmakers in more than 100 countries around the world. Over 30 judges were part of the selection process and included James Franco, Aziz Ansari, Travis Rice, and others. The winners of each category, of which there were 13—captured, series, music videos, narrative, experimental, animation, remix, action, motion graphics, documentary, and the three newest, advertising, fashion, and lyrical—received grants of $5,000 to be used for the development of future films. And the grand prize winner received $25,000.

“We did not expect to win. But, I mean, do you ever expect to win?” said Julius Metoyer, a member of the grand prize-winning team, Everynone, who were given a trophy for their collaboration with WNYC's Radiolab, a video called Symmetry. The money, he said, will be used to fund “three or four really serious projects.” And once they’re finished, they’ll upload them to Vimeo.

“That’s the best way that people can see it,” Mr. Metoyer said. “That’s the one and only outlet that we have.”

Founding director Sasha Chavchavadze and Katya Redpath singing ditties on the outdoor stage.

Last Saturday evening, cousins Julia Casey and Lily Warnke, squeezed into silk tank tops and mini skirts and migrated to north Brooklyn. Later that night, they planned to make their way to a bar on the Lower East Side, but first, they had to attend a benefit for Ms. Warnke’s mother’s interdisciplinary art gallery and reading room, Proteus Gowanus.

As the young women traversed the event space—pausing in front of the outdoor stage (Ms. Casey: “I think that woman just sang about a Communist eating a fish”) and quenching their thirst with red wine—the crowd thickened.

For the last year, the theme of the artwork, installations, exhibits, and classes at Proteus Gowanus has been migration. “We looked at it from the point of view of populations, objects, the future, and time travel,” said Tammy Pittman, Ms. Warnke’s mother and the executive director of the space. But its meaning was flexible, she added, and meant to be used in a variety of different contexts.

Take, for instance, the theme of the benefit: nomads. “We wanted the benefit to focus on how people set up throughout space and interact with one another,” said Ms. Pittman. It also sounded like fun, she added, and seemed to fit the bill because “this is more a party about people than it is about objects or the future.”

The benefit, which was held in the establishment’s labyrinthine building—an old box factory—was more of a quaint affair amongst old friends and like-minded artists than a champagne and canapé fundraiser. 

“It’s a really unconventional benefit because we really don’t do a kind of a cocktail party and speeches thing,” Proteus Gowanus founding director Sasha Chavchavadze said. “It’s more interactive and fun and connected to what we do all year.”

In addition to access to the many creative spaces of Proteus Gowanus—the Hall of Gowanus, the Observatory, the Reanimation Library, and the Fixer’s Collective, to name a few—guests could also partake in a number of interactive installations created specifically for the event, such as a follow-the-leader-type card game called Nomad, a series of world maps for charting peoples’ physical migrations throughout their lives, and tarot card readings.

“It kind of organically grows as we go on,” Ms. Chavchavadze said of the seven-year-old gallery space, which became a certified non-profit in 2010. “There’s a lot of love for the organization and I’m hoping we can keep it going because it’s very community based and people care about it a lot.”

After a set of gypsy songs performed by artist and singer Katya Redpath, guests migrated into the main room for the night’s main event, a live auction. As Ms. Redpath auctioned off each prize, guests clamored to outbid one another, raising the prices ever higher. But the prizes they were competing for were not your average auction items. Instead of tangible goods, guests were competing to buy "live experiences."

“It’s a unique twist on the live auction,” Ms. Pittman said of the seven experiences up for bid. Of the selection, “Talking Trash,” a historical lecture and guided tour of the Gowanus Canal; “Literary Necromancy,” a guided tour through Green Wood Cemetery; “900 Years of Russian Art in One Hour;” and “Win Any Argument on Climate Change,” a one-hour lecture on all things climate-related, were the highest grossing prizes, with closing bids of $140, $135, $100, and $100, respectively.

As the event wound down, guests exited through the back alley, spilling out into the unusually cold night air. Tables were folded, food was packaged up, and bags of trash were deposited in dumpsters. Down the block, a thirteen-year-old boy and a hundred of his closest friends celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. A couple walked their dog. And Ms. Casey and Ms. Warnke checked their cell phones. It was a little after ten o’clock. Time for them to migrate back into the city.