- Neva Chonin, Chronicle Critic at Large
Monday, August 14, 2006
Harvey Levin, managing editor of the celebrity news site TMZ.com, is gloating over the phone line. "We kicked everybody's ass on the Mel Gibson story," he barks, as two other lines buzz to life in the background. At the time of my call in July, Levin has just scored, big time. TMZ trumped mainstream media by being first to report that Gibson had been pulled over on suspicion of driving under the influence in Malibu. TMZ then compounded its scoop with news that the "Passion of the Christ" director pelted police officers with anti-Semitic slurs. Thanks to the speed of online publishing, TMZ continued to stay three steps ahead of its competition as a simple traffic stop grew into a riotous cover-up scandal.
Bloggers have been giving old-school journalism a run for its money since the Drudge Report stole Newsweek's fire with the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998. But for those working in the dishy world of celebrity gossip, ceding ground to online upstarts is a recent phenomenon. TMZ's Gibson coup demonstrated, in the largest, loudest way, that the fame game is operating under new, and highly fluid, rules.
Entertainment traditions like the insider columnist, the tell-all tabloid and the soft-pedaling TV magazine are facing a new school of gossip bloggers, whose distinctive style, irreverent approach and speedy updates make conventional gossip media seem Jurassic by comparison. From PerezHilton.com's arch observations to Popbitch's brain-melting sex scandals, the new voice of gossip is young, ironic and not afraid of outrage.
They also have time on their side. "We don't have publishing cycles like magazines and newspapers, and we don't have time periods like TV shows," Levin says. "That gives us a huge competitive advantage when it comes to breaking stories."
TMZ.com has the added advantage of a large staff and corporate backing from AOL and Telepictures. But some of the Internet's most popular celebrity news blogs are laptop operations whose only reporters are readers posting in their forums or text-messaging in celebrity encounters on their cell phones. Imagine a people's army of gossips, running a guerrilla operation on the streets of New York and L.A. Celebrities don't stand a chance.
Neither, some say, do conventional gossip media: Teen People just killed its print magazine and will exist solely on a Web site; supermarket tabloids remain popular, but have ramped up their online operations with fresh graphics and frequent updates. What's missing from many of these mainstream sites, unfortunately, is the ingenuity of a blog like Gawker.com, whose innovative Stalker map pinpoints readers' celebrity sightings on a graph of Manhattan. Who needs a rehashed press release about Nick and Jessica when one can track Colin Farrell as he stops for lunch, hits on a waitress, has a drink, hits on another waitress and then catches a cab to another, soon-to-be-mapped part of the city?
"We're seeing a democratization of fame, where the middle man is being eliminated and the distance between the celebrity and the watcher is growing smaller," says Joshua Gamson, professor of sociology at the University of San Francisco and author of "Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America." "I can go online now and say I saw Gwyneth Paltrow in Tribeca and she looked good, or I saw so-and-so and my gaydar went off. Information on these sites isn't top-down; it circulates from person to person. We're in a new phase where people who are completely outside that system, and not reliant on those inside the system, are circulating this information and these images. And they're free to say what they want to say."
They're also free to say what they want exactly the way they want to say it. Famous for their scathing humor and merciless critiques, most celebrity news blogs thrive on a template of loud pictures and brief, but pithy, text. One notable exception is Popbitch.com, a weekly newsletter out of London whose minimalist e-mails come packed with items transgressive enough to make the National Enquirer read like the National Review by comparison. Contributors from around the world report on the anatomies of famous people showering at the local gym; blind (and not so blind) items catalog celebrity sexcapades no print publication would touch -- at least not without donning rubber gloves first.
TMZ's Levin, who once produced TV's "Celebrity Justice," bristles when his site is grouped with Popbitch and other gleeful scandalmongers. TMZ, he scolds, is not a gossip site, but a "functioning news organization. We have reporters, lawyers, researchers. Every word gets vetted."
Many do-it-yourself gossip bloggers are happy to let TMZ.com vet the stories. They aren't interested in finding the scandals, just talking about them. Trent Vanegas cheerfully admits that his popular site, PinkIstheNewBlog.com, is more an aggregator of existing celebrity images than a news site. But these images take on another life when spiced up by Vanegas' mocking observations, pointing out details usually overlooked: a stain on a dress, a mysterious bulge, an exposed surgical scar. For Vanegas, 31, who recently relocated from Detroit to Los Angeles, the juicy details always trump the big picture.
"I just try to have fun with celebrities while they're going out and wearing horrible outfits," he says. "I'm not out to malign anybody, but if Paris Hilton is going to have a boob pop out, well."
Vanegas admits his trademark wit abandoned him when he met Madonna last year. Apparently it's one thing to talk about an icon; talking to an icon is something else. "I almost forgot how to speak," he recalls. "I think we just talked about Detroit. I don't know if she personally reads my Web site, but I know her people do."
Feeling bashful has never been a problem for another online gossip pioneer. "I was born to do this," exults Perez Hilton (real name Mario Lavandeira), juggling his cell phone while barreling down Sunset Boulevard on his way to a meeting. "I've always been obsessed with pop culture and celebrities. My site is all me; I'm an online entertainment outlet." Besides overseeing his one-man blog, which averages close to 1 million hits a day, Hilton, 28, says he's also writing a book, launching a podcast and developing a reality TV show he describes as "a cross between "The Real World" and "The Simple Life," with a little "Punk'd" thrown in."
What began as a hobby two years ago has become a full-time job for Hilton, whose circle of best female friends now includes Salma Hayek, Ashlee Simpson, Lindsay Lohan and his site's namesake, the ubiquitous Paris Hilton. His readers were the first to learn that Brad and Angelina were coupling in Africa, for example, and Lance Bass' sexuality was old news on PerezHilton.com by the time it made the cover of People.
Says Hilton, "Before, news would break in magazines and on 'Access Hollywood.' Now, our sites are breaking the news, and other outlets are expanding upon it. We're changing the landscape of celebrity."
What will be the end result of these changes, if the entertainment world's traditional balance between manufactured image and titillating exposure tips too far toward the latter? As the Internet's viral gossip network makes controlling an image increasingly difficult, Professor Gamson wonders whether all this "celebrity demotion" might backfire.
"In order to maintain an aura of greatness and glamour, you do need a certain amount of image control," he says. "The democratizing of celebrity culture and loss of control could lead people to lose interest in it, because why do you need to see another picture of Katie Holmes looking bad?"
Still, Gamson isn't ready to declare the End of Celebrity just yet. "I think Internet gossip culture is still more a subset of self-styled hipsters. There are still plenty of people getting information from old-school tabloids. They're still watching 'Entertainment Tonight' and reading People magazine."
Ah, but for how long? Hilton, for one, feels magnanimous. "There are so many sites, blogs, shows and magazines, and such an insatiable appetite for celebrity, that there's room for everybody," he says. "The only ones that will become obsolete are the ones that don't know how to have fun with it."
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Surfing for the superficial
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a celebrity in possession of an ego must be in want of a blog to puncture it. Here are some of the sharpest.
Defamer (
www.defamer.com) Gawker.com's L.A. affiliate is among the smartest, most smoothly wicked gossip sources in any medium. The pictures are pretty, too.
Gawker (
www.gawker.com) If it's cool, if it's not cool, if it's reprehensible or sublime, Gawker.com knows about it and is already preparing a post. A bellwether blog for pop culture and celebrity shame. Home of the infamous Gawker Stalker map.
Oh No They Didn't (community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/) At almost 400,000 members, Live Journal's scandal-mongering community overflows with interactive snark. Imagine a gossip clearinghouse run by teenagers with bad attitudes and sharp tongues. Oh, the hilarity.
Perez Hilton (
www.perezhilton.com) A premier gossip blog that thrives on risque images, video clips and news items, embellished by Hilton's droll remarks and anecdotes.
Pink Is the New Blog (
www.pinkisthenewblog.com) If a bit of naughty celebrity news appears anywhere on the Internet, it will eventually make its way to this blog, where Trent and his readers will soon have it begging for mercy.
Popbitch (
www.popbitch.com) Possibly the most outrageous, diverse and amusing gossip source online, operating from secret headquarters in London.
The Smoking Gun (
www.thesmokinggun.com) Indispensable for those who like following the paper trail behind a scandal, whether it's Mel Gibson's haggard mug shot and police report or a letter sent to Lindsay Lohan by a furious producer denouncing her unprofessional antics.
The Superficial (
www.thesuperficial.com) Cool, clean and deliciously mean, this site's motto is "The Superficial: Because You're Ugly." Say no more.
TMZ (
www.tmz.com) It's corporate, but it's irreverent and its staff knows how to nail a story. Great place for breaking news, candid video clips and embarrassing photographs.
-- Neva Chonin
Give Us the Gossip - We Want it Now
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