by Dan Loughry

Everybody who’s anybody knows that when it comes to what’s hot in pop culture, the gays are not just ahead of the curve — we invented it. Go ahead, just ask us.

Actually, you don’t have to ask anymore, you can just go to Modern Tonic (moderntonic.com), the daily subscriber email and website that launched in May of 2008. Created by Craig Karpel and Marc Mannino, partners at publicity and marketing firm The Karpel Group, Modern Tonic is a one-stop shop of buzz-worthy activity. Each day, the site sends one Daily Tonic email to subscribers that’s like getting a breathless email from a good friend telling you about the latest thing, whether it’s a fantastic book, an under-the-radar movie or another intriguing website. Modern Tonic also caught the eye of Andy Towle, creator of the award-winning blog Towleroad, which now features a weekly branded music column.

“The website was really Craig’s brainchild,” says Ari Karpel, Modern Tonic’s editor and a former senior editor at Entertainment Weekly. “When we were kids, he started a magazine called Broadway Magazine. We were pre-gay kids from suburban New Jersey whose mom would let us go to the city to see shows all the time.”

“If Broadway Magazine was an inspiration,” Craig Karpel says, “it certainly wasn’t intentional. It dawned on us that I was creating a digital version of the ‘magazine’ we made as kids on our Dad’s photocopy machine. I hope it’s better written now!”

“There’s been such an evolution in gay media over the years,” says Ari. “There’s a prevalence of sites, magazines, newspapers that have focused on empowering gay readers that it was clear what the next steps seemed to be. Something that was perhaps identifiably gay but not exclusively gay. I think there’s room for an entertaining website about pop culture that identifies as gay but is for everyone.”

“Because of my work, as well as my being known among my friends for keeping up on the release dates of everything, I always seemed to be asked for suggestions on what music to buy, what movies were coming, etc.,” says Craig. “I loved that my friends asked me that, and found it rewarding to turn them on to new artists. I had this idea for a website that had the voice of a trusted friend telling you about something new worth checking out.”

“That’s the kind of thing Craig and I had an ongoing conversation about at the beginning,” says Ari. “His initial vision for the website was ‘let’s talk about the things we’re excited about.’ There’s so much negative, bitchy, snarky coverage out there. We don’t really need to do that. We want to be the place where you go to find, every day, the one great thing that you must check out.”

And what are the great things to check out for 2010? According to Ari, “We’ve been very intrigued with a couple websites lately. One is called Domestic Daddy, [done by] this fabulous gay guy—who with his partner and their baby—have a house in the Hamptons, Manhattan and San Francisco, and he blogs about recipes and style. And Transracial is a blog that I’ve been following for about a year. This guy David Kaufman—he’s Jewish, gay and black. He’s lived in many places in the world and he blogs about news that has to do with the intersection of race, gender and sexuality. Interesting, provocative stuff.”

According to Craig, “there are a few artists that I love who had European or UK releases last year that will finally get U.S. releases, Dan Black and VV Brown among them. I’m also liking that band Hurts, who only have two videos and seem very mysterious ... you can’t even Google them with that name. Their ‘80s vibe is killing me.”

“It sounds silly maybe,” Ari says, “but it’s like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Gay men are often seen as the people who have their finger on the pulse of pop culture. We have lots of friends who are straight and turn to us for recommendations on books and music and movies. At its core, that’s what Modern Tonic is.”