A reason to read the Stanford Law Review: Famous for Fifteen People. It involves a lawsuit against Facebook over whether broadcasting your Likes via Sponsored Stories is equivalent to a celebrity endorsement. The plaintiffs argue they are indeed famous to their friends. They lost, but the ruling has broad implications for the right to privacy, the legal notion of "newsworthiness," and what it means to be a public figure.
The WSJ asks a ton of famous and somewhat famous people for their new year's resolutions. The ones you (may) care about: Richard Meier, Ozzy Osbourne, Gary Shteyngart, Louis CK, David Chang, Cee Lo, Oprah, Slash, Murakami. Sean Lennon wants to finish Gravity's Rainbow. Billy Corgan takes a shot at Pavement and Sonic Youth for doing nostalgia shows. [via Grub Street, which extracts the chefs]
How can this possibly be real? Or not real? Amy Winehouse's high school diary was found in the trash, so naturally The Sun published it. The money shot: What will she do when she gets famous? "Live like the bombshell I really am. Get teeth fixed."
Your favorite Twitter account for the next five minutes: @tobangscarjo. That is, Things I Would Do To Bang Scarlett Johansson. Funnier than it should be, including: "Mumblecore marathon" and "Name my kid Courtney Love."
Michael says, "You know Dina was praying for it." He did not specify if he felt she was praying for the hit or for the plane to go down.
I was reading this Daily Intel post and first I'm like no...God has better things to do than shake up Michael Lohan. Then I saw that the Time Square bomber had been apprehended and realized no... no he does not. --SK
we can't all be the olsen twins, but apparently we can try.
today i learned that david lynch has his own coffee brand.
dan aykroyd launched a vodka that seems to be based on the worst Indian Jones movie.
bill wyman wants you to find loose change on the beach.
these are, of course, very clear and compelling 'synergies' between products and brands. and lord knows the star power of these three will mean investors will make tens of dollars. -- FB
"Peaches Geldof seen smooching with new boyfriend Eli Roth" So we can add Eli Roth to heroin and Scientology. What a great trifecta. --DG
New York Press film critic Armond White went all pissy in The Post, claiming he was barred from Noah Baumbach's new Ben Stiller movie (huh?) because White once said mean things about The Squid And The Whale. But publicist Leslee Dart says Armond was nixed because he made personally insulting remarks about Baumbach, like "calling him a [bleep]hole and saying his mom should have had an abortion." Which is just so...I don't lololol-able? Not that I dislike Noah Baumbach, but it's funny to think of this little Wes Anderson protegee being told his mother should have had an abortion. Like the only thing that could make this funnier is if Christian Bale had said it. -- DG
In keeping with today's "celeb" theme--Wayne Coyne is famous, right?--here's a profile of a guy who moderates Oh No They Didn't, arguably the most impressive celebrity link blog community in the world. It's written in a refreshingly understated tone (especially for The Awl), with both the writer (a friend of mine, full disclosure!) and the subject downplaying the predictable excitement one must feel when getting ripped off by Perez Hilton, racking up 2.5 million pageviews on Gawker and tapping into Dina Lohan's psyche, resulting in a peaceful glimpse into a surely hectic mind. --FD
"After gravity, culture is the thing that holds humanity in place." That's Cate Blanchett, making a case for the arts as both spiritually and economically necessary in a great speech she gave to the Australian Performing Arts Market this week. --FD
Know your celebrity Buddhists! The Daily Beast does a nice round-up, which I've narrowed down to four surprising categories: 1) Rich people of Asian descent 2) Rich people who have met the Dalai Lama 3) Orlando Bloom 4) Orlando Bloom's girlfriends. Notably absent: Tiger Woods' girlfriends. --FD
These two things from disparate parts of the Sunday Times (Week In Review and Styles) should be mashed up:
It "is one of the most symbolic documents of our age," the historian Daniel Boorstin wrote of [Celebrity Register]. "It is an index to the new categories of American society" -- the categories, he meant, that were formed by the media, which had degraded the hero into the mere celebrity. "The hero was distinguished by his achievement; the celebrity by his image or trademark," Mr. Boorstin observed. "The hero created himself; the celebrity is created by the media. The hero was a big man; the celebrity is a big name."
-- Tiger Woods and the Perils of Modern Celebrity
A growing number of Web sites now play the role of middleman, connecting aspiring contestants with casting directors. And as the reality genre has thrived, so has the cottage industry of online talent scouts that serve it -- sites like RealityWanted, Talent6 and GotCast, where people can find casting calls for TV shows and submit their resumes, often for a monthly fee.
My pal Hugh today launched a campaign for a noble cause: get Tracy Morgan onto Twitter. (Service announcement.) Vote yes!
Because in this movie, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis have sex. Yeah. You read that right. And not just nice sweet innocent sex either. We're talking ecstasy-induced hungry aggressive angry sex.
What's Frances Bean Cobain looking like lately? I knew you were asking. Here ya go.
Detecting Sadness in 140 Characters: Sentiment Analysis and Mourning Michael Jackson on Twitter. Udpate: Sasha is writing a book about Michael Jackson!
For Entourage watchers... A reporter asks Jamie-Lynn Sigler (Meadow Soprano) if pretty women date fat dudes in real life. He doesn't know that in real life she's fucking Turtle. I mean Jerry Ferrara.
Probably the best blog ever: Skinny Girls, Big Sandwiches. Leighton baby, what are you doing?
Good choice: big Zach Galifianakis profile in this weekend's NYT Mag. There's also a video: mock screen test.
Yesterday Jonah told Ashton to fuck off (haha, joke!). Today Ashton left Jonah a heart-felt voicemail. Ding-dong, celebrity is dead!
Questlove asks Rashida Jones trenchant questions. This is kinda interesting because it's a very non-famousy q&a. [via]
Heffernan's column is complex this week: Let Them Eat Tweets. It riffs on an idea from Bruce Sterling's closing address at SXSW: networked people are actually poor people. Counter-intuitive! Or as Sterling put it, "Poor folk love their cellphones!" This becomes a set up for a discussion of Twitter, beginning with a confession: "I'm not sure I'd use Twitter if I were rich." This networked class divide is not a bad idea to ruminate on for a second, but it also happens to be completely undercut by Oprah today showing up on Twitter and getting 150,000 followers almost instantly. As it turns out, Twitter is probably doing the exact opposite: allowing celebs to take over.
South Park Fixed Kanye. "I JUST WANNA BE A DOPER PERSON WHICH STARTS WITH ME NOT ALWAYS TELLING PEOPLE HOW DOPE I THINK I AM."
You probably saw the moot is atop the reader's poll for Time's "100 Most Influential People". They acknowledge the idiocy of these polls in this video: Moot vs. Rain.
So you like Arrested Development, The Raspberries, Animal Man, and Iranian cinema? Ken Jennings, will you marry me? [via]
People who are getting fined or sued for what they say on Twitter: Mark Cuban and Courtney Love.
Letterman got married? Harrison Ford is about to? Dudes, you're making us look bad....
Headline: "Jennifer Aniston ended relationship with John Mayer because of his __________ obsession". G'head, try to fill in the blank. Surprise!
Dr. Drew Pinsky gave The Narcissism Test to celebrities who came through his show. The average score for the general population is 15.3; for celebrities, 17.8. [via my pal Anna, who scored a 24]. Update: Buzzfeed has more narcissism links.
Worlds colliding: Creepy-chan, a former 4chan camgirl, is an America's Next Top Model contestant. For the mouthfuckin win: "I'm really interested in hemophilia."
My @AndyWarhol Twitter account has 200+ followers even though it has never been updated. What should I do with it?
Secure Website Authentification Questions. "How many hours did it take you to drink that bottle of Jack Daniel's yesterday?"
Financial Times reviews three recent books about celebrity (Fame by Mark Rowlands, The Star as Icon by Daniel Herwitz, and The Fame Formula by Mark Borkowski).
In the future, everyone will want to be Britney Spears' social media manager.
What's an "exclusive" nowadays? Exclusive Interview with the Woman Behind @BritneySpears. That! In other news, Joe Satriani Accuses Coldplay of Plagiarism.
New research claims that 18th century obituaries triggered modern fascination with celebrity culture. [via]
Though it did make the urban dictionary, the term fauxparazzi never took off like I hoped. Wired, however, discovered that the phenom has been taken to its logical conclusion: hiring people to photo stalk you.
Give something a name and suddenly your hidden fetish has been revealed: The Granny Hooker Look.
Two dissimilar people who get the long profile treatment in this month's Wired: Perez Hilton and Neal Stephenson.
Dumb idea that was bound to happen: Chickipedia, "the wiki of hot women." [via]
The Upgrader: Hotlist Microcelebrities. You upgrade/downgrade the various internet celebs that you think have a chance of persevering over time.
Everyone's a Narcissist, It Seems. "A term that has deep roots in psychoanalytic literature appears to have become a popular descriptor so bloated as to have been rendered meaningless." Of course, you would think so.
FAME
(David Bowie)
Fame, (fame) makes a man take things over
Fame, (fame) lets him loose, hard to swallow
Fame, (fame) puts you there where things are hollow
Fame (fame)
Fame, its not your brain, its just the flame
That burns your change to keep you insane (sane)
Fame (fame)
Fame, (fame) what you like is in the limo
Fame, (fame) what you get is no tomorrow
Fame, (fame) what you need you have to borrow
Fame (fame)
Fame, nien! its mine! is just his line
To bind your time, it drives you to, crime
Fame (fame)
Could it be the best, could it be?
Really be, really, babe?
Could it be, my babe, could it, babe?
Could it, babe? , could it, babe?
Is it any wonder I reject you first?
Fame, fame, fame, fame
Is it any wonder you are too cool to fool
Fame (fame)
Fame, bully for you, chilly for me
Got to get a rain check on pain (pain)
(fame)
Fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame ,fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame
Fame
Whats your name?
Feeling so gay, feeling gay
Today Julia took over the internet. Of course, this launched (Radar's take is the best). And she has a debate in Page Six with Sklar about defending your online reputation. And more than any of those things, the West Coast will finally (perhaps) stop saying "who?" every time her name is mentioned -- yep, she landed on the cover of Wired. Let the snark commence... UPDATE: Wired article.
Of course the conceit of The Microfame Game was using the framework of the how-to article as a set-up to talk about internet celebrity. Though there are occasional points of advice in there, following it like a guide book would inevitably turn you one of those people, the crazy ones who freak out and quit the internet every month. In that sense, it's as much a cautionary tale as a how-to. However, in writing How To Storm Off the Internet in a Huff, Pareene took the task of service journalism literally, offering up actual advice on how to live semi-publicly online. And it's actually good advice -- news you can use!
I told Choire the other day that he's the anti-Deborah Solomon. Everything about her interviews are sculpted, perfected, edited to these crystalline little moments that end up feeling lifeless. (I've argued elsewhere that the accusations of over-editing never bothered me ethically, just aesthetically.) Choire's interview with Matthew Broderick has the opposite feel, like what would happen if you accidentally got seated next to him at dinner.
The internet was spectacular yesterday. Within moments of the photos of the Olsen twin and Nicole Richie party showing up on the internet, everyone's rss readers and chat windows lit up like a Soundgarden show in 1993. Seconds before it exploded, I emailed my online muse, Spencer of GoldenFiddle.com, requesting 30,000 words of analysis. Who else could possibly explain this incomprehensible blend of nostalgia and futurism, celebrity and diary, class and style, party and funeral? "It's like art," I said. He delivered this response, the only poetry worthy of our time:
concept-less art, perhaps.
a flannel party? weeeeeeeeak theme!!!
and the madden boy doesn't even oblige.
weak.
these pictures are actually reassuring and hilarious
because i think it highlights how uncreative these million dollar babies are.
sure they're cute and carefree and cobrasnake and everyone's having a good time, (where are the adults?)
but they've been rich so long they fucking suck at spending it the right ways.
plastic plates and forks? store bought pinata? no art on the walls, no rugs, no nothing.
just cupcakes candles those retarded oversized wine glasses and the worlds ugliest marble countertop for miles.
that little munchkin olsen is living a permanent freshman year, god bless her her caffeine-addled soul.
she's like some g-rated iggy pop, flopping around, everybody telling her she's so CRAZY!!!!!!!!
funny thing is i have pictures that look EXACTLY like these, too. wasted, flannel shirt unbuttoned, untucked, too many cigarettes in my fingers.
i was 15.
nicole richie has the world fooled with her whole mom-routine.
she's the mastermind here. she's the smartest guy in the room.
she's fucking brilliant if you ask me. that smile is deadly. she's so far ahead of this bunch. she has shit mapped out.
and she may be hoisting a smart water, but it's just to wash down the scripts.
so, where's that new born, anyway?
the dudes are just loving it.
fucking slime-balls that don't even know it.
brody jenner jrs in training.
posing, smiling, lying, networking, being the guys.
they're all 5 steps ahead, too. they know where their night is going.
they've got plans. MK has no plans. she has drugs and sychophants.
what the fuck else does she need?
robert downy jr would laugh in these kids faces.
he'd flip the dinning room table over, call them pathetic and main-line their absinthe.
then he'd call charlie sheen over and they'd piss on the curtains.
i bet every girl in that dining room has had 47 abortions.
the sisterhood of the xanax and dark-colored sweatpants.
the sad part is that mary kate has nothing to return to.
rdj lifted himself out of hollywood hell and got back on the A-list.
the olsens don't have that opportunity. they're never going to be actors again.
they never really were. it's just more of this until something bad happens.
Video montage of YouTube cam girls giving their MySpace ID numbers. Why? Because when someone becomes so famous on MySpace that fake profiles of them are created, they need to send MySpace admins "proof" of who they are to have the fake profiles removed. An amazing, completely modern phenom. [via]
You might think that when The Atlantic put Britney on the cover a couple months ago, it would have been a newsstand rout. Turns out, nope, it sold half of what the mag usually does. (I thought the story was decent though.)
Gawker: Perez Hilton's Clothing Line Unveiled. May I suggest a brand name? Bfugly.
Kate Beckinsale doing her French New Wave impersonation for Mean, with Serge Gainsbourg's as the soundtrack. You're welcome. [via]
Brian Williams is playing Gnarls Barkley on his MySpace page. He also lists Wilco, Vampire Weekend, and The Ravonettes. My new life goal is getting him to listen to the new Foals or Santogold.
Kristen Bell on Letterman. Brilliant ruminations on Pica and wood-grained paper plates. [via]
Want to waste your afternoon? May I suggest ParisBFF.com, a casting site for Paris' new stupid reality tv show. Even Tay has submitted a video. [via]
Defamer is debunking the Marilyn Monroe sex tape. However, that was her in Two Girls, One Cup.
Marilyn Monroe Sex Tape. Yep, fer realz. The Superficial's line: "People gave blowjobs in the '50s??!"
I finally finished The Atlantic's profile of X17 / Britney Spears, which is occasionally insightful and occasionally meandering. (Is there anything better to summarize this age of celebrity than these two bits? -- Britney deciding to date a paparazzi dude and Britney staying up late at night to read the X17 message boards. Who's watching/fucking who now?) The accompanying online-only slideshow essay/interview is better in some ways, because it gets straight to the thinking of the production of celebrity.
Esquire's fictionalized account of Heath Ledger's death. Because I adore anything that's fake and stupid, I'm obliged to declare this brilliant! NYT story confirms how crazy (crazy brilliant!) they are.
It may seem like a suspicious suggestion, but I recommend Rolling Stones' Britney Spears cover story (only a fragment of which is online). The juicy dish on Brit-Bot is in there, but it's really the not-so-disguised analysis of celebrity culture that hits you: the industry that Britney has created, the disease that fame has become, and the hunger of a public that is insatiable. I realize that we tend to hyperbolize the contemporary moment, but I can't help feeling like the equation famous = fucked up has ever been more true. (Also: Grigoriadis is the real deal.)
Nothing to see here... (Encyclopedia Dramatica's entry on Jakob Lodwick)... move along. [via]
If your nerd crush on Natalie Portman wasn't already stultifying, this will totally numb your mind: it turns out she is a neuroscientist. Literally.
There are approximately a dozen ways to perceive Julia Allison. Nick chooses one of the decent ones and runs with it in Gawker.
One year ago this week, the paparazzi photo company X17 filed suit against Perez Hilton for copyright infringement. I recap it in Gawker.
Allow me to say something totally retarded: I feel like I grew up with Kate Moss. Which is why Radar's cover gallery tour is like a personal pop culture slideshow.
Matt asks: Are Sarah Silverman and Ann Coulter basically the same person? Good question.
The Stranger immortalized effeminate YouTube star Chris Crocker a while back with a sprawling cover story. Today, the entire blogosphere is linking to the video of him crying about Britney.
WaPo does a lot of self-loating over the celebrity interview, dragging to the stand everyone from Gay Talese to Gawker. [via im]
If you don't already despise Perez Hilton, try reading the most boring interview of all time. His new show on VH1, What Perez Sez, debuts in September.
As I see it, the problem with last week's Paris Hilton story is this: there is absolutely no acceptable opinion. Every single response sounds retarded. Outrage at the justice system? Retarded. Outrage at the media? Retarded. Outrage at the public? Retarded. Cultural relevance response? Retarded. Sympathy for Paris? Retarded. Apathy? Retarded. Non-answers like this? Totally retarded. And then Christopher Hitchens comes along with something that seems perhaps non-retarded... but it's still retarded.
So the person who took this Vietnam photo is also the person who took this Paris crying photo. [via]
