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webtards
Eleven Ways The Internet Can Kill You
While I was pulling an all-nighter this weekend watching YouTube, my stomach started to growl even though I'd had like a whole thing of goldfish crackers and a bottle of Kahlua, and as I popped a diet pill and scratched a couple scabs off my forearm, I had a vision of the eleven ways the Internet could kill you. (Please don't sue: Of course not all the sites and practices listed below are directly responsible for any deaths. But if you're already at risk, you might just get yourself killed when you use them.) More »
slither
LOTS of People Want to BFF with Paris—She Swears You Guys!
Giant-footed reptilian invader Paris Hilton is denying reports that only a few trannies auditioned be on her upcoming reality show. And, no, she's not counting little Scotty Mouthbreather. From her MySpace page (Sic, sic on all of this!): "And just to clear up any misinformation you may have heard, there are NO open calls for the show! Everyone they invite has applied thru the site and they've picked out the best contenders to interview. With so many applications to go thru they are trying their utmost best to read and contact everyone from the official casting application." [HollyScoop] Full silly blog post after the jump. More »
the internets
Tacky Quote From MySpace CEO Matches Rest Of MySpace
Here's what the CEO of MySpace said about his new deal with three record companies: "This is really a mega-music experience that is transformative in a lot of ways... It’s the full 360-degree revenue stream." Using the words "mega-music" and "full 360-degree" in an interview with the Times is, well, it's as vapid and gaudy as your typical MySpace page. Here's a less barf-inducing description of the probably-doomed music site the CEO was talking about: 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 »
trendsquatting
Olds Discover That Youngs Are Used To Cameras
Breaking: Young people are more used to being filmed than earlier generations! And in fact they feel obligated to share their stories on video, so much so that they've "blurred the lines between reality and 'reality,'" according to Newsweek's new trend piece. The changes come because everyone has a camera now, as well as blogs and MySpaces to turn temporary emotions into permanent records. Good news for reality show producers, great news for Media Studies majors, but fantastic news for young people destined to become famous (and we all are totes gonna be famous, dude). More »
quote whoring
Hooker's Myspace Friend May Have Pissed Her Off
"Mysterious" the Queens rapper who starred in a music video with Ashley Alexandra Dupré, recently appeared on the Today Show and Access Hollywood to "defend" his friend. "Mysterious" told the Today Show gang that he and Ashley are "tight like a family," but Myspace messages sent from "Mysterious" to Dupré last night indicate that Eliot Spitzer's favorite high priced hooker didn't ask him to hit the talk show circuit on her behalf. In fact, it sounds like she might be pretty pissed off about the whole thing. In the message "Mysterious" indicates that he hasn't heard from Ashley in a while despite repeated attempts to get in touch. He also tells Ashley: "i hope you feel we helped you more then hurt you in speaking out." Wow, apparently sometimes media whores do feel dirty afterwards.
heart of gold
The 'Times' Found 'Kristen'!
The New York Times was the first to track down "Kristen", the high-class prostitute whose two hours with former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer ended his career. Her real name: Ashley Youmans, aka Ashley Alexandra Dupre. She's 22, she's from Jersey, and she's newly single. Her MySpace profile is still live, if you'd like to listen to her demo. Or check out her top five! The kind-of insane Times story pretty clearly just went live because they knew their scoop wouldn't last. It summarizes her MySpace bio, quotes her talking about how she saw the Rolling Stones, and criticizes her demo song's "dated slang." And that's about it for news. But still, good show! Ashley's blog entry from Thursday, August 30 is full of awesome advice, so we will reprint it, below. More »
Apparently, the difference between a $3,000 hooker and a $50 hooker is the ruined aspirations. "Kristen's" Myspace page, as uncovered by NYT. She's got a decent voice, $50 bucks says Perez Hilton signs her to his new label deal before summer.[www.myspace.com] And http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/nyregion/12cnd-kristen.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
celebrity-industrial complex
Lisa Marie Presley is Mad and Pregnant
And she's telling her MySpace friends all about it! From the singer and Elvis daughter's latest post, titled "confirmation under the gun," she rails against "the media" for wildly speculating about her expanding belly and forcing her to confirm her pregnancy before she was ready: "They couldn't wait to find out if my weight gain was because I was just overeating, in which case It would be open season and they can do the old 'following in her fathers sad and unfortunate demise' story again. Or, less interesting for them, and probably much to their dismay, I could just be pregnant and therefore have a legitimate reason for weight gain at which point they should probably wipe the saliva off of their fangs and put them back in their mouths or they may expose the black little souls that they are." Tell us more, girl! More »
webtards
Parents Fight For 13-Year-Old's Right To Call Principal A Student-Raping Hitler Worshipper
Parodying a high school principal? Weak but understandable. Making a MySpace profile for him which reads "I like to give anal to the little boys at my school"? Less defensible and possibly libelous! But after a thirteen-year-old boy was expelled from school for making the profile (which also lists Hitler, Michael Jackson and a purple strap-on as the principal's heroes), his parents are suing the school for violating the boy's free speech rights, since he made the joke on his own computer and because it's so clearly not a serious accusation of child rape. Below is the now-deleted profile, or at least the terribly grubby copy used in the court filing. If anyone has a better screencap, send it to tips@gawker.com. More »
disasters
Courtney Love Will Drunk Blog You
Courtney Love is the same as the rest of us. Much like you and I (or maybe just me), the addled and insane singer/songwriter (and better singer/songwriter marry-er) sometimes gets trashed and goes on the internet and writes embarrassing things. Her medium of choice seems to be her MySpace blog (Why must celebrities have blogs?) Last week she posted an angry rant directed at a person who had published Courtney's friend's phone number, saying it was the rock star's. Now the friend is getting tons of calls and Courtney is just fed fucking up with it. The most wonderfully inscrutable and bloggy detail I could glean from it is that she doesn't actually do anything for the site, but still loves MySpace very much: "..it takes about 8 people to run this site for some reason and tho i do read the comments i dontrtend to write lengthy letters back personally although occasionally i wrote a friend or somneone i like or post at someones space b ut not too often, trhats just how these my spaces work- so dont go offended - i love this my space and i dont need this karma wierdness- get off my cloud." Everyone's always on my damn cloud, too, Courtney. [ohnotheydidn't] Full text fter the jump, plus the wonderful, classic video of Courtney Love harassing Kurt Loder and Madonna at the VMAs. More »
instant analysis
Murdoch v. Microsoft
Wily old Rupert Murdoch. His media conglomerate, News Corporation, is in talks to merge its social network site, MySpace, with Yahoo, reports the Wall Street Journal. Why is this so clever? More »
quote of the day
Those Terrifying Scientologists
The Church of Scientology is a famously vindictive institution, prepared to use litigation and harassment to suppress critics. And nobody gets kid-glove treatment, not even relatives of the sect's high priest, David Miscavige. His niece, Jenna Hill, claims she's been subjected to harassment since speaking out in support of Andrew Morton's critical biography of Tom Cruise, the Hollywood star and fervent Scientologist. The dreadful price: "At least eight friends have removed themselves from my MySpace page."
status updates
Facebook Outrage: Insurance Company Demands A Peek At Kids' Profiles
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey denied benefits to two minors because they have eating disorders. Eating disorders, the insurance company claims, are emotional, not biological. It gets more fun: Horizon has demanded access to the kids MySpace and Facebook accounds, to "shed light on the causes of the disorders, which determines the insurer's responsibility for payment." So think twice before you make your Facebook status something lame and emo: it could be used as evidence that you're uninsurable. If you can even afford it! [Law.com]
myspace
The New MySpace Might Include An Alibi Service
Of late MySpace seems in the throes of a quarterlife crisis (if there even is such a thing): MySpace celebrity, MySpace China, MySpace Sex Offender. But News Corps' owner and MySpace godhead Rupert Murdoch isn't done with the changes yet. As per a soft glow Times piece on Rupples, MySpace and its two-headed founder Chris DeWolfe/Tom Anderson, "users will soon be able to tailor their profile for subsets of friends, “so my colleagues will see a much different page than my college buddies,” Mr. DeWolfe said." Which means! It'll be easier to a) be in the closet, b) play hooky from work because if one can tailor which friends display based on who is looking at the page there is not reason one can't tailor all other aspects as well or c) both a) and b) like that poor bastard on Facebook who got fired after his boss looked on his Facebook page and saw him in a faerie costume when he said he was home sick. [NYT]
serious business
'The New Yorker' Explains MySpace
The New Yorker's lengthy, depressing story on the MySpace prank that became a tragic suicide is up. If you're looking for a bright spot to a story of adults driving a depressed 13-year-old girl to suicide, it might be author Lauren Collins' description of how that whole MySpace thing works: "MySpace has a pliant grammar, and its users manipulate lowercase and capital letters for visual effect. 'Z's trump 's's, so that 'Miss Honey Love' becomes 'Mz.Hon3y Luv.' A boy named Shane writes his name '$h@NE,' in the pasteup style of a ransom note." Little old ladies from Dubuque are presumably thankful for the brief. (MySpace would like you to know that they're holding a press conference at 11 today about "security" with "Hemanshu Nigam, Chief Security Officer, MySpace and Fox Interactive Media and others.") [New Yorker]
myspace
