Being named "celebrity mum of the year" by some British company seems to be a bad bad omen like no other. I remember when Kerry Katona was named that very thing, and she soon after spiralled out of control in every which way imaginable. There are other notable examples of this too.
But hey, Britney has already done all that spiralling, so who knows with her?
Really though, I just don't see the point of ridiculous titles like that, they are obvs meaningless...
@applejuice: Mel "Scary Spice" B was also declared Spectacle Wearer of the Year, even though she didn't need glasses and wore them, ooh, ONCE for a photo op. Good times.
A lot of people dislike the term bisexual because it references an attraction to two genders, which isn't particularly inclusive of people of transpeople or those who don't consider themselves to be male or female. Hence pansexuality, which is like having the capabiltiy to be sexuality attracted to anyone, regardless of sexual organs or gender identity.
@BookishLookish: I want to start a band now, just so that I can call it "Hungry for Blondies". And we would all get great tattoos of pinup girls straddling outsized wrenches & so on.
@Lux Alptraum: One good thing about the Depression is maybe people will stop talking about their specialized fucking desires nobody could give a shit about.
Lame. The Daily Beast is already way more interesting than Gawker. Seriously, I don't know how you can live with yourself writing something so preposterously self-serving.
How can you possibly self-servingly favor your own higher-traffic, moneymaking employer? Can't you see that this man has totally subjective opinions that conflict with your totally subjective opinions? I have no idea how you sleep at night, Mr. Nolan.
@ADismalScience: Ha. Well put. I think it comes down to whether Gawker is written by actual or aspiring journalists or the "flacks" and "hacks" the staff here delights in lampooning.
Well, yes. The upper echelons of those flacks and hacks, as you put it, are a protected class that command relatively high salaries from dying organizations despite no proven ability to generate revenue. I love Gawker because it's an insurgency against the useless upper class of "name" writers who latch on to magazines and parasitically devour them while regurgitating a few out-of-touch columns per month. It also points out the inherent shittiness of PR morons who squat uselessly on the gains of the boom years.
On the other hand, it tends to prove that just about anyone can write well given the platform, so the economics arguments the editors make about the death of newspapers always seem like missing the flaming forest for the dying trees.
@ADismalScience: So just to paraphrase your argument, a journalist's worth is directly correlated to his or her "ability to generate revenue."
As a concerned acquaintance, I humbly request that you watch the news every now and then. Your Randian worldview ought to have gone down in flames along with the stock market.
I figured you'd jump to that. I even considered putting in a little comment such as "I am aware of the hypocrisy!"
(And as for revenue-generation, I work for a cost center - my expectation is to reduce costs, which I do well. My business unit is profitable, and vastly more so because of my involvement.)
Words are the product that a publication ultimately sells. Advertising is supported by virtue of the brand-power and readership of a publication. That brand and readership are created and cultivated by the writers on staff, and the ability of their output to get pageviews or induce purchases.
Gawker has proven you don't need names to do that well if you have a strong brand and a quality platform. That's why Nick spend so much money on infrastructure! It's not Randian - it's just, you know, the business model.
My suspicion is that the internet isn't so much bad at making money, but that the print world was perpetrating one of the biggest con jobs in modern history. Like hedge funds and subprime mortgages, the print advertising industry was built on a pile of sand that is long gone at this point. Good luck, Gawker!
@ADismalScience: Apparently I am too stupid for this comment board. I can't make the connection here. Reporters are still doing their jobs. Newspapers are still doing their jobs. People are actually still reading newspapers. The biggest change is that other companies aren't advertising anymore. If I'm not getting something, please school me.
@ihateyourescalade: No - The "problem" is that print consolidated to the point that their fates were left up to few 20-something "market-makers" in Jersey, whose whole "market" has bottomed-out and who really have no clue about business.
Hey, print journalists: Let's all organize with our pens and reporters' notebooks in hand and march en masse down silicon alley until someone gives us our magazines and newspapers back. This "start a website" trend is bullshit.
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But hey, Britney has already done all that spiralling, so who knows with her?
Really though, I just don't see the point of ridiculous titles like that, they are obvs meaningless...
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I'm not sure. The Omni was almost as unsexy as the Gremlin.
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And there are always the DeLorean kinksters.
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Now that's just sick. Sometimes you may have to break down and legislate morality.
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HA. Holy shit, that is just wrong on so many levels.
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And we would all get great tattoos of pinup girls straddling outsized wrenches & so on.
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That's not the first time I've heard a statment like that.
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Um, "statement".
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How can you possibly self-servingly favor your own higher-traffic, moneymaking employer? Can't you see that this man has totally subjective opinions that conflict with your totally subjective opinions? I have no idea how you sleep at night, Mr. Nolan.
02/24/09
02/24/09
Well, yes. The upper echelons of those flacks and hacks, as you put it, are a protected class that command relatively high salaries from dying organizations despite no proven ability to generate revenue. I love Gawker because it's an insurgency against the useless upper class of "name" writers who latch on to magazines and parasitically devour them while regurgitating a few out-of-touch columns per month. It also points out the inherent shittiness of PR morons who squat uselessly on the gains of the boom years.
On the other hand, it tends to prove that just about anyone can write well given the platform, so the economics arguments the editors make about the death of newspapers always seem like missing the flaming forest for the dying trees.
02/24/09
As a concerned acquaintance, I humbly request that you watch the news every now and then. Your Randian worldview ought to have gone down in flames along with the stock market.
02/24/09
I figured you'd jump to that. I even considered putting in a little comment such as "I am aware of the hypocrisy!"
(And as for revenue-generation, I work for a cost center - my expectation is to reduce costs, which I do well. My business unit is profitable, and vastly more so because of my involvement.)
Words are the product that a publication ultimately sells. Advertising is supported by virtue of the brand-power and readership of a publication. That brand and readership are created and cultivated by the writers on staff, and the ability of their output to get pageviews or induce purchases.
Gawker has proven you don't need names to do that well if you have a strong brand and a quality platform. That's why Nick spend so much money on infrastructure! It's not Randian - it's just, you know, the business model.
02/24/09
seven syllables go here
ooh this is meta
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Right, keep going - you're almost there! Why are the companies broke? Because the customers aren't doing what important thing that they used to do?
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No - The "problem" is that print consolidated to the point that their fates were left up to few 20-something "market-makers" in Jersey, whose whole "market" has bottomed-out and who really have no clue about business.
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