When I was flipping through the February issue of Vogue,
something caught my attention ““ a headline heralding
Wisconsin senator Russell Feingold as “the most blogged-about
Democrat since Howard Dean.” This was big. If a high fashion
magazine like Vogue believed that being “blogged about”
was something that not only deserved respect and praise but was
also worthy of over three pages, this definitely legitimized the
new Web trend.
While I admit that I’ve recently gotten hooked on reading
blogs, I attributed my initial delight in them to the part of me
that was a cheap and lazy college student. Why walk all the way
down to the magazine stand in Westwood and shell out $4 each week
to get the new Us Weekly when I can sit in my room and check out
blogs like Perez Hilton and Defamer for updates on celebrity gossip
and entertainment industry news for free? But then I started to
realize that regularly reading blogs was in some ways even better
than reading the tabloids, largely because they are sometimes
updated multiple times a day, as opposed to the week-long wait for
the next issue of Us. But it seems I’m not alone in my
feelings ““ a Women’s Wear Daily article reported that
fourth quarter sales for Us Weekly, People and In Touch have all
fallen from last year.
But for those of my friends who aren’t satisfied with just
saving a couple of bucks, they have actually attempted to make
money writing blogs on anything from celebrity gossip to music.
Seriously, sitting in your apartment earning extra cash writing
about your interests definitely beats picking up a part-time job
flipping burgers at In-N-Out. (Please pass on making a personal
online diary, because unless you have a personal life like Jessica
Cutler, the woman behind the D.C. blog scandal and author of
“The Washingtonienne,” no one cares and you
aren’t going to get a whole lot of advertisers.)
In my mind, having a blog is one thing, being blogged about is
quite another. If “Mean Girls” was made in 2006, Damian
wouldn’t say to Cady about the Plastics, “If North
Shore was Us Weekly, they would always be on the cover.” He
would say, “If North Shore had a blog, they would always be
on it.” Well, that’s kind of a stretch, but you get my
point.
Anyway, one of my good friends and former A&E columnist,
Justin Scott, recently started a celebrity gossip blog at
so-thin.com. So when we headed out to Hollywood Life’s
Breakthrough of the Year Awards last month, I discovered that he
had brought along his camera to snap pictures of celebrities for
his blog. We were congregating with the Hollywood nobodies around
the food table, avoiding the carbs on our plates and keeping an eye
out for famous people, when all of a sudden Justin spotted Jeremy
Piven.
Before I knew it he was pulling me and another friend, Erica,
over to Piven, calling, “Jeremy, these girls really want to
take a picture with you.” Piven agreed and Justin took the
photo of Erica and me with Piven.
The next day, I got a call. It was Justin telling me to check
out his blog to see photos from the night before ““ and there
was a photo of me, Erica and Piven under the heading, “Jeremy
P.I.M.P. Piven!” with “Hugh Hef Jr.” scrawled
across Piven’s suit. The note underneath the photo read that
Piven “was the object of every girl’s affection! Could
these be the two hot blondes he’s been rumored to have been
seen all over with lately?”
While my first reaction was that of mild horror at the
fabrication and of being equated with “the girls next
door,” I was then excited by my launch into celebrity. It
doesn’t matter what people say about you, the point is that
people want to write about you. Just look at Nicole Richie. The
media tracks her every move, reporting on her eating disorder which
she, of course, denies as true.
So I checked the blog later that day hoping for comments. There
was only one, which read “On Jeremy Piven: I’d hit
it” ““ and I’m pretty sure it was written by
Erica.
It was about then that my ego deflated and reality set in. Sure,
being blogged about was great, but the only people in the pictures
who anyone really cared about were celebrities like Piven. And just
like the North Shore Plastics were not tracked by the real Us
Weekly, neither is my life tracked by Perez Hilton or Defamer.
So unless I can come up with some way to be a blog-worthy
person, I might have to look into starting my own. I could use the
extra cash, anyway.
Rodgers is trying to decide what to make a blog about
besides her exciting personal life. E-mail her your ideas at
jrodgers@media.ucla.edu.