Gossip & Blogging

I've been sitting on this blog subject for a while. It's been sitting in my drafts, just waiting to be finished/tweaked and posted. But i could never get it to quite jive. The writing never flowed properly, and it just didn't feel right. Hence it never got posted. What I failed to realize is that I was missing a necessary ingredient to make the post work. In this case, the missing ingredient is indignant outrage.

The victim?

Elaine Lui. AKA Lainey. Of laineygossip fame.

I'll admit it, i love celebrity gossip. I love the seedy underbelly of fame and all it's pitfalls of wealth, drama, and scandal. I eat it up with a big judgemental spoon and then have room for political scandal and some tv on the side. In fact, my mind is a steel trap of useless knowledge about celebrity relationships, gossip, and factoids that would benefit me greatly if I was taking some crappy pop quiz from Cosmo. However, probably not so much if I was on Jeopardy. For instance, did you know that Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know" was written about Dave Coulier of Full House fame? Yeah, put that in your cap and smoke it.

However, what I can't stand is sanctimonious, hypocritical gossip bloggers. I realize that gossip bloggers and celebrity gossip go together like mac & cheese; they exist in some sort of symbiotic relationship that results in mutual life-suckage. However, there is no call for gossip bloggers to act self-righteous and smug about their occupations, considering they are equally guilty of fame-whoring as the celebrities they debase and criticize so mercilessly.

It's something that's bothered me about lainey's site for a long while now. But I sucked it up, and kept visiting (I know: me = glutton for punishment). However, the last straw was when she bashed Kristen Bell, saying she was barely distinguishable. Lainey even insinuated that KBell was a bitch.

KRISTEN BELL! Oh no you don't!

For some people, reverent topics include their children, their spouses, etc... For me, a cardinal rule is: YOU DON'T INSULT KRISTEN BELL. I realize that sometimes Kristen Bell violates good taste--seriously, it looks like monkeys picked out her outfits and then she got dressed in the dark--but the woman was Veronica Fucking Mars. She is the paragon of cool. And Lainey has now earned herself an implacable enemy. ERRRGGH!

I'll warn you: it's a looooong one.......

Seriously though, it's annoying and frustrating how Lainey goes on these tangents, crucifying celebrities for this and for that, when she does the exact same thing. Here are her crimes:

1) Lainey regularly dismisses celebrities like Miley Cyrus and Lindsey Lohan for having a child's grasp on the english language. Meanwhile, she throws around what she considers "high-faluting" words that prove how her IQ and language skills are far superior to celebrities. Obsequious, ubiquitous, and profundity are popular ones. Here's the problem: her blurbs often read as if she picked select words, used the thesaurus and executed a "replace with". As great of a solution you might think it is, just because a word sorta means the same thing as another word doesn't mean that the words are interchangeble. Use this as an example:

I am Miss Nihilist. I have such profound thoughts and I love to insult people.

The Lainey thesaurus replacement version:

I am Miss Insurgent. I have congeneric sagacious reasoning and I adulate to affront inhabitants.

One reads okay, albeit pompous and bitchy. The other reads as if I'm suffering from verbal diarrhea and possibly brain damage. And THAT's what it's like reading Lainey's ramblings. But she does it with such aplomb (*puke*), we're expected not to notice. Mostly because she believes that her words are those of an intellectual, erudite scholar.

I especially love when she does posts about John Mayer. Mayer is an ass. He redefines douchebaggery. I'm fully aware of this. But you can't write a post pointing out how stupid and egotistical Mayer is while sounding like a stupid butt yourself. Defeats the purpose. From her most recent JM post: "This was told to me and I’m passing it to you to illustrate that Mayer had more than enough time to get set."

WTF? "I'm passing it to you..." What is this? A fucking baton? "Mayer had more than enough time to get set." Is he Jello?!

Another example: "Laura had a problem with the disconnect of his accent." Um, disconnect? WITH AN ACCENT?! Is his accent a traincar? Or a phone?

And let me introduce you to the run on, barely-makes-sense sentence: "They’ve reconciled after he quit her ass when she fake-invited him to her wedding only to have him work the entire time on her face without payment." I'm not sure what that even means. I think HE broke up with HER ("quit her ass" as Lainey puts it so eloquently), but they got back together after she "fake-invited" him to her wedding, and then he did slave plastic surgery on her face? I dunno, I'm really not sure.

I want to clarify something: I am not upset that Lainey has terrible grammatical skills, and has a paint by thesaurus method of writing. Whatever floats her boat. I have terrible grammar. I wouldn't know grammar if it hit me in the head, beat me up and stole my ipod. I abuse, commas, continuously, and, religiously--no, really, I, do. What really grates on my nerves is her holier-than-thou tone she takes while she writes her posts. As if she would never make grammatical errors. And celebrities who can't write or spell are worthy of her derision and mockery because unlike them, Lainey is edu-ma-cated. To borrow a much used Lainey term: SIT DOWN Lainey!

Which brings me to #2) Not only does Lainey constantly point out the stupidity of celebrities through their incoherent tweets and blog posts, she likes to draw attention to the outrageous behaviour of hollywood starlets, claiming that they are fame-whores and love attention. Yes, they probably love the attention--that's beside the point. The point is, having a gossip blogger denounce celebrities for being vapid and sycophantic is ineffably hypocritical. Hello pot? It's the kettle. He's yelling BLACK.

I believe the phenomenon has been characterized as a "generic LA cesspool of vapid, skinny bitches and their vapid skinnier sycophants". At least that's what Lainey, the-105-lb-woman-who-waxes-poetic-about-how-badly-she-wants-a-pair-of-$600-tights calls it. Because whole blog posts about $600 tights, Burberry trenchcoats, and shopping trips to Saks is the epitome of deep and insightful right? And the woman writing the posts? She must be a fucking philosopher!

3) Lastly: over the last few months, laineygossip has become less about gossip and more about Lainey's critiques of celebrity outfits! OH WOW! Not only is she a gossip blogger, apparently she's also a fashionista! She should be hired by Calvin Klein and become its creative goddamn director. I too, love looking at celebrity dresses after big events like the Golden Globes, but i don't take a public stance outlining celebrities as "Best in Black", "Best Hair", etc.. and you know why? Just because I think someone looked great doesn't mean that I have the critical eye necessary to critique someone's dress from a fashion POV. Just because I like architecture doesn't mean I'm going to become a fucking engineer or architect.

I'm not saying that she can't have an opinion. As I've pointed out more than once, everyone has an opinion. More often than not, it's a stupid one. But it's still an opinion. But consider the connotations; saying "I LOVE Actress SDR's Golden Globes dress" is much different in tone and meaning than "I declare/award Actress SDR had the Best Golden Globe Hair/Dress" (or title a post declaring such).

I realize the incongruity of me bashing a blogger ON my blog (some would refer to it as hypocrisy). But my blog is frequented by 2, maybe 3 people. Lainey's? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? More? I think if your readership consists of that many people, you owe it to them to be responsible in what and how you report.

When Lainey disseminates her opinion on a very popular blog, you know there are masses of people who take her words as gospel--without once questioning that maybe Lainey isn't the best voice on a particular subject. So when Lainey says that celebrity A is hooking up with celebrity B, everyone takes that as fact. When Lainey says that celebrity Z did this for this reason, everyone believes it because they consider her the definitive voice on celebritydom. Okay, fine. But when people look to Lainey for movie/book reviews and fashion critiques (and she provides them because she mistakenly believes that people want to hear her opinion on every concievable subject), that's overstepping the line. She basks in the adoration of her readers and posts running commentaries while watching gossip girl episodes because she wants people to think that she is so funny, so hip, and so cool. She appears to believe that people genuinely care about her opinion on books, movies, and TV shows. In other words, Lainey takes herself way too seriously.

I realize that Lainey has met a lot of celebrities throughout her years as the GREAT CTV correspondent (ooooh, the pinnacle of achievement I assure you). But meeting someone for 5 minutes in an interview room, or talking to them for 2 minutes on the red carpet does not qualify you to cast judgements on that person as if you've known them forever. And that's what Lainey does. She writes as if she is that person's close personal friend, and therefore knows the EXACT motivations behind every action. Oh, shut it.

Furthermore, she always criticizes celebrities for their fashion choices, telling them that they need to dress/act their own age. Some celebrities need to dress younger, and some celebs need to dress/act older. Says the mid 30's (late 30's?) woman who writes loquaciously about being hungover, drinking too much, and similiar activities that would be much more becoming of a woman 10 years (at least) younger. SIT DOWN LAINEY!

I am not defending celebrities like Lohan, Cyrus, and Mayer. Everytime Lohan ventures out her front door without wearing pants, she's really asking for it. I know this. What I am taking a stand against is people who attack other people while believing they are above reproach. Like Perez Hilton maintaining he is a "credible" source. Yup and I think I'm the lovechild of Elvis and Mother Teresa.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go write a blog post about string theory and quantum mechanics... what do you mean I have no training as a physicist? You can fake everything and everything on the internet! Welcome to 2010 baby!