It’s Monday morning. After a crazy weekend and only five hours of sleep, you struggle to wake up, get dressed and leave for work. You stop by your local coffee shop for a quick jolt of caffeine, but instead of rushing to climb the corporate ladder from 9 to 5, you stroll over to an empty seat, whip out your laptop and type to your heart’s content while sipping your latte.
That’s what life is like for blogosphere superstar Mario Lavandeira, more commonly known as Perez Hilton. The 28-year-old celebrity gossiper began his blog back in 2004, then titled PageSixSixSix.com before the New York Post slammed him with a lawsuit and forced him to change it to PerezHilton.com. Before becoming a full-time blogger, Perez’s past professions include stints as an actor, publicist and journalist. He decided to create his own entertainment blog after working at a high-profile tabloid magazine and witnessing their unethical journalistic decisions. He now blogs all day in West Hollywood’s The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Sunset and Fairfax, affectionately called “The Office,” where he happily freeloads off the Wi-Fi access and celebrities like Lindsay Lohan visit him from time to time. The website’s fans seem to trust the accuracy of Perez’s posts, especially since he often parties with A-list celebs like the Hiltons and the Simpsons. With a readership occasionally shooting over one million viewers a day, PerezHilton.com has become an A-lister in the cyber world and continues to grow in fame.
After Perez Hilton’s whirlwind success, others are following in his footsteps in hopes of creating blogs as salacious as his. Like print and other online media publications, blog sites obtain income from advertisers. Blogging can lead to full-time conventional employment and Perez says that, aside from the plethora of free goods from companies who love his online shout-outs and multitude of invites to exclusive parties—New York’s Fashion Week, Cannes Film Festival, Sundance, and the MuchMusic Video Awards, he makes enough money to blog as a living. Another way to gain income from advertising is for bloggers to promote merchandise from other sites, receiving a commission when a customer buys the item after following a link in one of their posts. Although Perez sometimes works up to 19 hours a day, he’s able to work at his own pace and do what he loves.
Blogs can also provide a certain talent pool from which mainstream media, like print publications and online news sources, scout for new resources and recruit staff. Editor of media gossip blog Jossip Corynne Steindler was hired to write for the New York Post’s Page Six and Vanity Fair hired Gawker.com’s Jesscia Coen to be deputy online editor. Perez is reported to have a new reality show in the works, which showcases his life as a celebrity blogger. For some, blogging is a part-time recreational hobby, but it can lead to other opportunities. Bloggers like eff Jarvis of BuzzMachine and Hugh McLeod from the Gaping Void quit their jobs and extended their own services—like consulting—or marketed other products—like books. Perez Hilton also acts as a celebrity consultant, sporadically appearing on CNN, MTV, ESPN Radio, Current TV and KTLA.
After much blatant self-promotion and attention-whoring, Perez has become sort of a mini-celebrity in his own right. But most would think that since he’s become so recognizable, celebrities would avoid him at all costs in fear of being a victim of his scandalous gossip. “Not at all,” Perez has said. “Since people know who I am they’ll come up to me.”
And they do. Most wind up becoming friends with the superblogger, like “American Pie’s” Shannon Elizabeth, who Perez light-heartedly ridiculed for being on the “F-list”. “I felt bad about that,” he said during an interview, “but not about calling her F-list, because, you know, I'm keeping it real. She is F-list! Come on. The only thing people remember her for is American Pie and that was years ago.”
But infamous party girl Tara Reid despised Perez’s incessant criticisms and told him to “stop talking about me.” Tara Reid’s fiery reaction to his posts fueled Perez to criticize the actress even more, making fun of her plastic surgery procedures and degradingly drunken behavior in Los Angeles nightclubs. Perez’s relentless gossip about Reid may have led her to reveal her plastic surgery nightmare in a recent issue of People magazine.
But infamous party girl Tara Reid despised Perez’s incessant criticisms and told him to “stop talking about me.” Tara Reid’s fiery reaction to his posts fueled Perez to criticize the actress even more, making fun of her plastic surgery procedures and degradingly drunken behavior in Los Angeles nightclubs. Perez’s relentless gossip about Reid may have led her to reveal her plastic surgery nightmare in a recent issue of People magazine.
The difference between entertainment blogs and genuine online news sources is that blogs mainly post speculation instead of completely verifiable information. The controversy lies in when blogger begin speculating too much, starting rumors in the industry and creating unnecessary hype. In September 2005, Perez began writing about the sexuality of former ‘N Sync bandmate Lance Bass when photos of him with “The Amazing Race” winner Reichen Lehmkuhl surfaced. After the question of Lance’s sexual orientation remained unanswered, the boy-bander came out of the closet to People magazine in July 2006. Perez protests that he did not push him out, but that Lance Bass was in the process of coming out because of his public appearances with Reichen Lehmkuhl. Openly gay himself, Perez said, “I get a lot of flack from people saying, ‘It’s not your place to out anyone.’ I would never do that to a random stranger, but if you’re a celebrity or a politician, you’re fair game. They know what they are getting into. Even Lance has acknowledged that.” In early November, former “Doogie Howser, M.D.” and current “How I Met Your Mother” star Neil Patrick Harris came out in a public statement, after Perez’s same speculation on his website. Reichen, Lance’s boyfriend, says that Neil Patrick Harris was “lanced”. “It’s to be outed by someone in the public media and to a celebrity,” he says, “and Neil Patrick Harris, I understand, has been ‘lanced.’ They're calling it a ‘lancing.’ It's to be ‘lanced.’
Despite the controversy surrounding his site, Perez Hilton has taken the blogging world to a whole other level. Aspiring cyber stars are jumping on the blogging bandwagon at rapid speed. With the rise of YouTube and video blogging, users like LonelyGirl15 have shot to instant fame. Blogging isn’t just a fad—it’s become a pop culture phenomenon, leaving old-fashioned forms of media in the dust.
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