I love reading blogs, especially political blogs. Two of my all-time favorite blogs have to be Gawker, a media blog, and Wonkette, a political blog written by the hilarious Alex Pareene. Both blogs are part of the Gawker blog network, and both report news in the most hilarious, laugh-out-loud fashion possible, which is why I love them. Wonkette also live-blogs political debates with great commentary, which, if you're anything like me, is the best idea ever.

Anyways, very recently, the Gawker Media network started up Jezebel. I usually stay away from celebrity gossip blogs and the like; I feel some of them are kind of crazy and besides, celebrities don't deserve that much attention from us. Why give them the attention? It just inflates their egos and make them think they're important, when hardly any of them have done anything considered important (Bono and Angelina Jolie are good exceptions to this rule). BUT Jezebel changed that. Despite my very public rejection of celebrity gossip, I find myself drawn to Jezebel. It's witty, it's well-written, and often times their commentary goes beyond just reporting the minute details of celebrities' lives and actually has some significant insight on pop culture and media today in American society. They also gossip about political figures sometimes too, and they mock those celebrities whose actions deserve to be mocked --rather than putting them on a pedestal and worshipping. The team at Jezebel is not afraid to tell it like it is, at the risk of hurting hundreds of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton fans the world over.

For instance, Jezebel recently became notorious for exposing just how airbrushed Faith Hill really was on the new Redbook cover, and wrote a great, honest piece about how airbrushing celebrity photos is wrong and promotes a false ideal to young women:

"So why do women's magazines continue to insist on providing readers just the opposite? Is it stubbornness? The selling of fantasy? Or the selling of other things, i.e. advertising revenue? And if so, is it really necessary to shave 10-15 pounds off a woman and erase exactly what it is (the freckles, the moles, the laugh lines) about her that makes her human and accessible and interesting in order to sell a bit of fucking soap? Look at the picture above, and tell us that Faith Hill is not fucking gorgeous and vibrant just the way God -- not Photoshop -- made her....Magazine-retouching may not be a lie on par with, you know, "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction," but in a world where girls as young as eight are going on the South Beach Diet, teenagers are getting breast implants as graduation gifts, professional women are almost required to fetishize handbags, and everyone is spending way too much goddamn time figuring out how to pose in a way that will look as good as that friend with the really popular MySpace profile, it's fucking wrong. And we're glad you agreed."

Dare I say it's...an intellectual celebrity blog?

Labels: blogs, jezebel, media, pop culture

Remember when MTV actually used to be...music on television? Nowadays MTV is rife with plot-less reality shows and self-absorbed, spoiled teenagers such as those on Laguna Beach, The Hills, My Super Sweet 16...MTV is no longer even worth our time, sadly.

I hate Laguna Beach. On the rare occasions that I have watched it (yes, I have...) it's mostly out of a keen fascination over how such crazy people can exist and function normally in the real world when they are so clearly living in their own rich bubble of a world. I loved this post today lamenting the decline of MTV at College Candy, which talks about the ever-lame Laguna Beach spinoff The Hills:

"This show is trash. Pure garbage. White 20-somethings bitching and whining that their deep pockets aren’t deep enough and their amazing jobs aren’t amazing enough. Bleach blond breast-implanted bimbos who aren’t doing a thing to make this world a better place. Interning at Teen Vogue and working the door at some Hollywood club? This is supposed to drama? This is supposed to interesting? This is supposed to be camera worthy?

And god forbid the producers let a person of color or of a different race step into the frame. Darkly tanned and brunet does not count as diversity.

Why do people watch it? Mostly because it’s there, but also because it covers fantasy with a realistic sheen, making most of us mistakenly think we can live the same way. Not many people who move to the Hollywood Hills have millions of dollars in their bank accounts, not many people can stride into any club they please, or land topnotch internships without any experience."

Agreed! When is MTV going to come up with something creative that real people can relate to and enjoy? Or, oh, here's a fresh idea, actually showing music videos!

Labels: MTV, pop culture, reality TV