Brother, can you spare a dime for my Gucci bills?

In the meantime Karyn, with her own debt nearly paid off, has capitalized nicely on her experience. She's selling the rights to her life story to a major motion picture studio, she says, and is also in the process of selling a book about her experiences to a publishing company. It's a curious career -- being famous as a beggar -- but despite her critics, she's not at all chagrined about what she did.

"A lot of people say, Where's your pride at? You should work hard and pay it off! I have pride, but when did it become so horrible and shameful for somebody to ask for help?" she says. "I see this as a proactive thing to get rid of my debt: It's a lot of work to upkeep the site. I'm not filing for bankruptcy and sitting on my ass. It's a funny Web site, and I'm proud of it."

And will Karyn "pay it forward" when her debt is retired? She's donated some money in the past, she says, $20 here and there to the ASPCA and Catholic charities, and if she gets the book deal, part of the money will go to charities. She's eager to help other individuals, she says: "I think of people as all good people, and if I had a lot of money and ran across some girl who was in a position I'd been in before, I'd find it funny, I'd laugh, and say, 'Here you go,'" she explains. "That's what I would do if I had a lot of money: I'd help someone out."

But Karyn's magnanimity has its limits. On the way back from coffee, when we are stopped on the street by a vaguely surly young man in jeans and sneakers who asks us for a dollar to get on the subway to "get to school," she pauses. Ever the savvy self-marketer, she weighs her decision carefully, knowing full well that a reporter is standing next to her and waiting for her response.

"Sorry," she finally tells the man, and walks on, glancing out of the corner of her eyes at me. "That's going in the story, isn't it," she says, flatly. I ask her why she didn't give him a dollar, and she responds with confident self-righteousness: "He was crusty, and smoking a cigarette," she explains. "That dollar wasn't going to go toward the subway."

She's probably right, but I have to wonder: If he'd confessed that the buck was really going to go toward a six-pack of beer, would she have reconsidered her decision? It seems doubtful. In the world of Karyn and her circle of friends, the generosity of strangers seems to turn on a giggle and a plight that a Web-linked peer can relate to. Crusty beggars looking for subway money just don't have currency in Karyn's world, where a worthy cause is a "funny" "sweet" girl with a Gucci jones. It is about branding -- in all things.

Karyn heads home guilt-free with a smile on her face, knowing that today she is blessed; that when she gets home another box of letters and cash will arrive in the mail; that an offer for a book deal will be on her voice mail; that the economy is finally looking up and so is she.

• View blog reactions