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diggbait
celebrity science
It's shaping up as a cruel summer for drunk, high or otherwise messed up celebrities trying to stay on the straight and narrow. Comedian Andy Dick was arrested this week for groping a 17-year-old's breasts while in possession of marijuana and Valium, in something of a reprise of his bust last year for doing blow in a nightclub. Actress and teen rehab veteran Drew Barrymore is now reported to have boozed her way to a breakup with actor Justin Long. Heather Locklear fled "depression and anxiety" rehab in Arizona after barely two weeks. Even a Rolling Stone, Ronnie Wood, surrendered himself to rehab again after leaving his wife for a 19-year-old cocktail waitress — and two bottles of vodka per day. Maybe all that summer daylight is pushing everyone over the edge! In any case, it's tough to keep track of who's where on the customary arc of high-profile substance abuse: embarrassment, criminality, rock-bottom desperation, rehabilitation and then either another trip around the circle or a break into the freedom of sobriety. That's why we've compiled a guide to once and future inebriated celebrities: 20 actors, singers, models and socialites who hog way more than their fair share of space in the gossip pages — and here on Gawker. We'll update and expand this list over time as a sort of encyclopedia of shame; your comments and tips are encouraged. (The arrows, by the way, indicate trends in drunkenness, so an upward arrow means getting drunker, downward means getting more sober.)
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The Gawker Wasted 20
It's shaping up as a cruel summer for drunk, high or otherwise messed up celebrities trying to stay on the straight and narrow. Comedian Andy Dick was arrested this week for groping a 17-year-old's breasts while in possession of marijuana and Valium, in something of a reprise of his bust last year for doing blow in a nightclub. Actress and teen rehab veteran Drew Barrymore is now reported to have boozed her way to a breakup with actor Justin Long. Heather Locklear fled "depression and anxiety" rehab in Arizona after barely two weeks. Even a Rolling Stone, Ronnie Wood, surrendered himself to rehab again after leaving his wife for a 19-year-old cocktail waitress — and two bottles of vodka per day. Maybe all that summer daylight is pushing everyone over the edge! In any case, it's tough to keep track of who's where on the customary arc of high-profile substance abuse: embarrassment, criminality, rock-bottom desperation, rehabilitation and then either another trip around the circle or a break into the freedom of sobriety. That's why we've compiled a guide to once and future inebriated celebrities: 20 actors, singers, models and socialites who hog way more than their fair share of space in the gossip pages — and here on Gawker. We'll update and expand this list over time as a sort of encyclopedia of shame; your comments and tips are encouraged. (The arrows, by the way, indicate trends in drunkenness, so an upward arrow means getting drunker, downward means getting more sober.)
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kevin rose
The founder of Digg.com talks about sitting down with the heads of News Corp. and IAC in an interview on Big Think. "When I sat down with [Murdoch] it was a hand-holding process," says Kevin Rose, whose site is reportedly now being courted by Google. "When I sat down with Barry Diller, he was telling me about my business...it blew my mind." Rose is also amazed by Al Gore. More »
Digg Founder Says Rupert Murdoch Is An Old, Barry Diller Is Savvy
The founder of Digg.com talks about sitting down with the heads of News Corp. and IAC in an interview on Big Think. "When I sat down with [Murdoch] it was a hand-holding process," says Kevin Rose, whose site is reportedly now being courted by Google. "When I sat down with Barry Diller, he was telling me about my business...it blew my mind." Rose is also amazed by Al Gore. More »
charts & graphs
Today, the Associated Press announced that Barack Obama is officially the Democratic nominee for President. Which means that the Hillary Clinton campaign is finished. It's been a long, long time. Two years, actually! We first tracked the history of the Clinton campaign back in April, when it was just probably doomed. Now it's time to revisit that history, this time with a big fancy chart. The data points are Barack Obama's closing prices on political futures betting site InTrade. The higher the closing price, the more likely investors think his nomination is (with 100 being dead-on certainty). Click to enlarge the chart, and to re-read our April history explaining the significance of the dates mentioned. Now updated with relevant "May" and "Early June" information!
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The Visual History of the Longest Primaries Ever
Today, the Associated Press announced that Barack Obama is officially the Democratic nominee for President. Which means that the Hillary Clinton campaign is finished. It's been a long, long time. Two years, actually! We first tracked the history of the Clinton campaign back in April, when it was just probably doomed. Now it's time to revisit that history, this time with a big fancy chart. The data points are Barack Obama's closing prices on political futures betting site InTrade. The higher the closing price, the more likely investors think his nomination is (with 100 being dead-on certainty). Click to enlarge the chart, and to re-read our April history explaining the significance of the dates mentioned. Now updated with relevant "May" and "Early June" information!
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photoshop
What If Websites Were Realistic?
What if Facebook let you properly express your rage against the tool who just added you to the "Buying and Selling Friends" app? What if Netflix knew you'd skip to the dirty bits? I paid Jay Hathaway a slave's wage to draw up what this would look like. More »
calling bullshit
5 Bullshit Stories the Whole Internet Fell For
The internet loves bullshit. While many of its denizens will brag of their skepticism, claim thousands of readers make the best fact-checkers, and say the web holds the mainstream media accountable, the fact remains that made-up bullshit still drives huge traffic, if it's marketed right. Hence, "13-year-old Steals Dad's Credit Car to Buy Hookers," a realistic-looking "news story" posted on some financial site no one had ever heard of before called monkey.co.uk. The fact that there were no sources other than this dodgy domain didn't stop the story from making the front page of Digg and Fark and racking up probably hundreds of thousands of views. Then "real" news sites began picking it up. It made the UK Sun's print edition. This tale was invented by an online marketer to boost a client's SEO ranking. And no one on Digg or anywhere else BUSTED the hoax. Nor do they bother to debunk any of the rest of the snappily headlined bullshit that makes the rounds every day. Four more examples, below. More »
webtards
Quiz: Are You An Online Jackass?
Everyone has a little online jackass in them; some of us add people on Facebook too soon, some of us beg for votes on Digg, some make white whines on Twitter. But these behaviors can lead to more annoying habits, like constantly bugging people to blog you, getting hooked on Yelp, or writing drug metaphors. Thank god online jackassery can be summed up in a condescending online quiz. Take it below! Maybe you're a Carrie. More »
clips
Top Ten Angry On-Camera Meltdowns
It's already been an exciting week for accidental on-air cursing, with New York broadcast institution Sue Simmons interrupting last night's Medium to ask what the FUCK New York is doing, but Sue and Bill O'Reilly just left us wanting more. So video guru Richard Blakeley (who's explored reportorial bloopers before) collected ten of our very favorite meltdowns by people whose job it is to not curse on TV. Some of these went out live, some were stolen from satellite feeds, but they're all golden. From Jim Ryan telling Dick Oliver that he'll explain how to be a reporter later to broadcast legend Bill Plante throwing a tantrum at the White House to vintage Sam Donaldson and Leslie Stahl, it's a cavalcade of rage and frustration. Like life. Click to watch!
holy war
Old White People Know the Truth About Barack Obama
West Virginia just keeps outdoing itself! The state—which is separate from regular Virginia because they used to like black people—is expected to overwhelmingly support Hillary Clinton in tonight's primary. Because Senator Clinton has been quite effective in drumming up support among older, blue-collar voters, yes, but also because Barack Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist who will enslave the white race and probably suicide bomb the White House. In the clip above, a voter explains that she can't support a Muslim. The reporter half-assedly attempts to correct her. Our voter will have none of it. Doesn't anyone remember Barack Obama's crazy black Christian preacher? There's more! More »
psa
The Five Most Dangerous Countries for Bloggers
Internet nerds became terribly excited recently when Twitter sprung a man from jail, but it's worth noting that in most of the world, blogging is much, much more likely to send you to to clink. While there are a number of bloggers whose eternal imprisonment—possibly in the Phantom Zone—we fantasize about daily, we grudgingly admit that throwing bloggers in jail for blogging is probably bad. So as a public service, we're here to tell you where not to blog if you value your freedom. China and Iran probably get the most press for their blogger crack-downs, and Malaysia just arrested a blogger this week, but if there's anything we learned from skimming the site of the Committee to Protect Bloggers, it's this: don't Tumblr in Egypt. More »
lawsuits
Ivy League Prof Sues Students For Being Mean to Her
A Dartmouth lecturer is suing her class for discrimination, as she revealed in a series of regrettable and bizarre emails that promptly ended up all over Dartmouth blogs. Priya Venkatesan (Dartmouth '90, MS in Genetics, PhD in literature) emailed members of her Winter '08 Writing 5 class Saturday night to announce her intention to seek damages from them for their being mean to her. The email, and so, so much more, below: More »
videuhoh
Diane Sawyer Rats Out Hooker To Her Parents
When the blogger and prostitute Debauchette was interviewed by Diane Sawyer for an ABC News report, several tricks were used to conceal her identity. She appeared mainly in silhouette, with a distorted profile and a distorted voice. She was identified only as a "beautiful," "highly educated" woman with a day job in the arts. The tricks were not enough, however, to keep Debauchette's parents from figuring out it was their daughter on the screen when they tuned in, as fate would have it, to watch the show. Mom saw Sawyer's report twice, to make sure her instincts had been correct, then fired off an email to her daughter, quoted in a Debauchette blog post: More »
time
Why Koreans, Diggers And Stephen Colbert Are TIME's Most Influential People
No one honestly thinks TIME's annual 100 Most Influential People list bears any relation to the world's actual power ladder. But it's a decent gauge of which entertainer has the most dedicated fan base. This year, three extreme cult followings have made Shigeru Miyamoto, Stephen Colbert and Rain the "most influential" people in the world. Joyce Kim, CEO of the Korean-American site Soompi, explained to me how three communities are battling it out to crown a winner. More »
exclusive
Christian TV: "Bibleman" vs. a New York Jew
In journalist/blogger Daniel Radosh's upcoming Rapture Ready, he investigates the parallel universe of Christian Pop Culture. It's kinda like regular pop culture, except holier and with slightly worse production values. He says the music's not as bad as you think, but from the looks of this EXCLUSIVE VIDEO, the TV is sublimely ridiculous, if a bit, uh, totally offensive. It's from a TV show called Bibleman, which airs on Trinity Broadcasting Network. In this installment, Bibleman takes on a smarmy talk show host named Sammy Davey, who happens to be an embarrassingly exaggerated Jewish stereotype. Sammy Davey—played by a man in a ridiculous Jewfro wig doing an impression of Martin Short doing an impression of Jerry Lewis—totally ambushes Bibleman, the Christian superhero who apparently doesn't fight evil so much as appear on talk shows to explain why bad things happen to good people. (Hint: because New Yorkers are Jews who don't believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ.) The whole thing is basically Randy Newman's "Rednecks" come to life, with Bibleman in the Lester Maddox role. Click through to read an explanatory excerpt from Rapture Ready and to watch the the astounding clip. More »
whoops
'GMA' on MySpace Suicide: "Someone Could be Hanging On Your Every Word"
Megan Meier was a Missouri teenager who hanged herself after bullying from a neighbor girl, abetted by the neighbor's mother. Because most of the bullying took place online, on MySpace, the story has a special appeal to the newsmedia—it's not just bullying, it's cyber-bullying. Good Morning America weighed in on the tragedy in a segment this morning. An excerpt appears above. It illustrates not only the importance of being careful "what you say online," but also the dangers of speaking extemporaneously on live television. Was "hanging on your every word" really the best choice of language there? CLIP »
google maps
For the "streetview" feature of Google Maps, the search engine's agents tour around city neighborhoods in a discreet van. Sometimes they catch more than just identifiable landmarks. Here, on a notorious drug trafficking corner on the South Side of Chicago, Google shows what looks very much like a transaction between a black man in long shorts and a baseball cap, and a sedan, numberplate clearly visible. And, because the map-makers take panoramic photographs as they drive around, one can see the exchange from at least half a dozen angles, as the van approaches, and then looks back. Amazing. This scene has been floating around the web the last few days, but we've pulled together nine shots from different angles, or close-ups, from Google's map site. Enlarged versions are after the jump. (Incidentally, movie-makers have developed thrillers around clues buried in soundtracks (Blow Out) or videotape (Black Rain, for example). I'm waiting for the first mystery in which the clues are sprinkled across Google Maps, Flickr and all the other web sites on which we inadvertently appear.)
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A Drug Deal Caught From Every Angle
For the "streetview" feature of Google Maps, the search engine's agents tour around city neighborhoods in a discreet van. Sometimes they catch more than just identifiable landmarks. Here, on a notorious drug trafficking corner on the South Side of Chicago, Google shows what looks very much like a transaction between a black man in long shorts and a baseball cap, and a sedan, numberplate clearly visible. And, because the map-makers take panoramic photographs as they drive around, one can see the exchange from at least half a dozen angles, as the van approaches, and then looks back. Amazing. This scene has been floating around the web the last few days, but we've pulled together nine shots from different angles, or close-ups, from Google's map site. Enlarged versions are after the jump. (Incidentally, movie-makers have developed thrillers around clues buried in soundtracks (Blow Out) or videotape (Black Rain, for example). I'm waiting for the first mystery in which the clues are sprinkled across Google Maps, Flickr and all the other web sites on which we inadvertently appear.)
More »
trendsquatting
Rickrolling Is The Plague That's Killing The Internet
The Rickroll prank (you know, you show a link pretending it's something else but it's really the music video for Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up") is just "made you look!" for the web. Worse: It's "sure thing...not!" for the web. That's why it caught on so damn well, because every idiot can enjoy a good laugh ("ha ha fooled you that was not the web page you intended to see"). Here's how it began (as a kind of funny joke), how it took over, and why using it makes you a moron who should be strapped down in front of a loop of "2 Girls 1 Cup." More »
tom cruise
