Gawker: almost famous

Rachel Sklar Leaving Huffington Post

Ryan Tate — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 02:56:41 EDT

To hear present and former Huffington Post employees tell it, the liberal website owes its ridiculously high turnover mainly to founder Arianna Huffington's tendency to use staffers to perform menial personal chores, to an internal culture of nasty screaming and name-calling and to a generally chaotic management structure, such as it is, subservient to Arianna's rapidly-changing whims. But Rachel Sklar managed to last a jaw-dropping two-and-a-half years at HuffPo, a rare achievement that saw her become one of the site's highest-profile editors and a frequent cable-TV talking head. Why would management, as our tipster claims, push Sklar out? Read between the lines in the memo after the jump.

In my HuffPo reporting last week, some insiders said they noticed Sklar appeared to have been pulled back from her television appearances in recent months — perhaps, one speculated, to keep the spotlight on Arianna and clear more space for other top brass. Or perhaps a well-publicized disagreement about editorial voice took its toll. Or maybe Sklar, like so many before her, finally decided enough was enough.

In any case, Sklar's forthcoming departure is well-timed in at least one regard: If anyone can help her reignite her media buzz elsewhere, it's Sklar's recent boyfriend, Rex Sorgatz — the microcelebrity expert.

Rex Sorgatz Forgot His Internet Safeword

Sheila — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:00:53 EDT

Oh, Rexie! The Internet micro-fame expert and boyfriend of the Huffpo's Rachel Sklar seems a bit shook up by our post about him yesterday—which honestly, by our standards, was fairly mild. "I wish I could remember my internet safe word," he Twittered. We'll congratulate him on the S&M reference, but Internet "friends" are irresponsible playmates that don't always stop when you're writhing on the floor, simultaneously begging for more and crying, "Red!" You know what else is fallout from microfame? This is how you know you've truly made it: somebody anonymous devotes 1,489 words to writing a fake chronicle of your sex life.

It's not really that riveting or particularly clever, but that's not the point: fake sex diaries are how you know you've made it as a micro-celeb (for a couple minutes.) Fake anything (Steve Jobs, Nick Denton) being created in your name is simply one of the Internet's strange customs.

[Fake Sex Diaries]

Next Time, I'm Going To Wear The One With Straps

Douglas Reinhardt — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:00:00 EDT

boomp3.com

Almost Famous actress Kate Hudson struggled to keep the top portion of her dress up while exiting a Brentwood eatery on Monday. Hudson decided to go with a strapless dress to prevent tan lines and, well, just to have fun during the summer. Yet Hudson spent a good portion of her walk from the restaurant to her automobile holding up the top portion of her dress. Hudson was surprised to discover that something that should've been so carefree and simple quickly become annoying and irksome.

[Photo Credit: Flynet]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.