Exxposed

CANCELED

Gossiping has been around for centuries, which makes me wonder how much of the history we know is even close to the truth. The word ‘gossip’ comes from the Old English ‘god-sibb,’ or godparents. The term was utilized to describe a woman’s close friend, reflecting on the powerful bond between the ladies. However, the word gained a bad connotation, which study shows that gender oppression played a role in the notion of gossip. Think witchcraft accusations, which started to popularize as women’s position deteriorated during the 16th century. Funnily enough, while husbands were to keep their wives at home so that they would not engage in these conversations with their friends, they were also encouraged to snitch on their loved ones, which is basically the same act they were forbidden to do.

17th century

Tabloid Culture

The word ‘tabloid’ was not invented until late 1880s in England when a pharmaceutical company trademarked the term to describe a pill containing compressed powders. Shortly after, publications were condensing English papers, presenting compacted articles of popular topics, starting the tabloid newspapers.

19th century

It wasn’t until the improvement in the publishing world and the printing press that publications containing general societal gossip started to appear more. Gossip has been part of American Journalism from the colonial years, but because it is associated with women, its importance in history has been diminished. Before tabloids were invented, society magazines were the go-to place to keep up with royals, socialites, and other famous people. These magazines can be traced back to the 18th century, but it was with the creation of illustrated publications in the 19th century that they were able to acquire gossip about the community and their drama.

One of the first women’s page began in the Milwalkee Journal in November 25, 1882, with recipes and wedding notices, women’s role as a wife and mother, but also highlighting their roles as consumers.

Another name can be considered the first American tabloid: Town Topics. The publication ran from 1885 until 1937, and focused on financial advice, short stories, theater reviews and its key selling point, society news. In this column, which due to its popularity took the first half of its publication, is where the gossip and scandals were published.

By using the pseudonym “Sauterings,” its editor E.D. Mann would report on celebrities and members of New York’s high society, creating a community of gossip and an early form of blind items shared on paper (see page 22) since its readers would also contribute with their own insights. This was also the publication that implemented a type of gossip that was specifically created for commercial context, meaning they chose the news that would start conversations and scandals.

1960 - 1990s

Beginning in 1960s, tabloid magazines such as National Enquirer and The Globe began to sell their magazines in supermarkets. By doing so, they targeted a specific audience: housewives and young women. With the typical bold headlines and sensationalist leads, these magazines were able to hold grocery store goers while they waited in line, attempting to sell their products at that last stretch of their shopping.

1920 - 1940s

The tabloid publications that we know today started as “fan magazines.” They were magazines created by people that were interested in keeping up with their favorite celebrities of the time, but mainly to have a place for conversations about the films and theater shows that were popular.

The publication that is often referred to as the first American tabloid is the Broadway Brevities and Society Gossip. Launched in 1916 by Stephen G. Clown, the magazine focused on theater and entertainment gossip that was aimed for the newly rich entrepreneurs and new Manhattaners. Articles included paragraph-length gossip, a small list of questions and/or innuendos that hinted at scandals, (blind items) and stories devoted to the destruction of reputation. Broadway Brevities is also known for hinting same-sex relationships, especially after 1924 with their new column called “A Night in Fairyland,” where these celebrities would be outed for enjoying a night out. It had its last official issue in 1925 after Clown was arrested for his ethics in the publication.

1950s

It wasn’t until the 1950s that magazines had more power and less fear when it came to publishing gossip about celebrities. At this point Hollywood studios had lost some power, making those publications more willing to report on scandals. Confidential magazine was powerful, and Hollywood stars were scared of them. Their first major gossip was published in 1953 about Howard Hughes, the owner of RKO studio. The article described him as “the World’s Richest Bachelor” who was so awkward

that “he hires ‘yes-men’ to find ‘yes girls’ for sexual encounters.” This rumor was later confirmed; Hughes would hire these girls for sexual favors, and most of these beauties were under contract to RKO. Even though it was not as scandalous as other stories shared by the publication, having his name on their pages made Hughers’ staff run to newsstands and purchase every copy they could find. Confidential editors were fearless, and quickly deconstructed the Hollywood image that was carefully crafted by producers back in the 1920s with the help of fan magazines. It became the most sold magazine in the United States, but by 1957, there were so many artists suing them that they went on trial and disappeared afterwards.

At the same time, these tabloids would offer to buy back their unsold issues so newer, up to date ones could be displayed. The “supermarket tabloid” era was when magazines started to have colored pages, and by the late 1980s, every issue were completely colored. This was also the time when celebrities started suing tabloid magazines for little.

The most famous exemple is of actress Carol Burnett’s successful lawsuit against The National Enquirer in 1976. The magazine implied she was drunk in a public encounter with U.S. secretary Henry Kissinger. As a result, it impacted tabloids’ recklessness and increased the willingness of celebrities to sue for label in the U.S.

2000s

The success of supermarket tabloids continued throughout the 2000s, and paparazzis took advantage of that to follow celebrities around by stalk them into their private lives, aiming for a click of an intimate moment.

The invention of the Internet and the ease of sharing content assisted in the development of blogs and websites specific for celebrity gossips: Perez Hilton, TMZ, Lainey Gossip, and many other blogs made their furtune by harassing celebrities and posting gossip at a record speed.

The fast and free content on the web gathered an audience that wanted to be up to date without the need of getting out of the comfort of their own home.

As the demand for information grew, these bloggers and paparazzis saw the need to acquire breaking news before their competitors, creating a media war within powerful outlets. With that also came fake news and twisted headlines that started to affect celebrities’ lives more than ever.

The mysogyny and homophobia of the early 2000s also assisted in the double standars when it came to the tratment of certain celebrities. Mental health made headlines, sex tapes were a fair game, and “bad behaviors” were what tabloids were looking for to be the on their covers.

The 2010s was the social media decade. Celebrity culture was domesticated by a free photo-sharing app — Instagram — and consequently leaving paparazzis out of relevance. As celebrities signed up, we gained access to their personal lives, a consented entry to their homes, giving us a new way of seeing our favorite stars. We got intimate with them, and they shared what they wanted (or what their publicists wanted us to know) and allowed us to enjoyed this personal connection that Instagram allowed us to have.

There was Twitter, giving us the possibility of communicating with celebrities through short messages. One like, retweet, or even a response from them gave us the false feeling of befriending someone that would otherwise not connect with us.

But this also created a new era for tabloid culture: we became the tabloids. We were the ones sharing their content, commenting on them, agreeing or disagreeing with their opinion, and giving them attention.

As social media evolved and became a direct source for celebrity gossip, previous medium like magazines and blogs also moved to those platforms to continue sharing their content. Blind item blogs evolved and Tiktok became a popular app for that type of content, Deuxmoi went from a social experiment to a popular gossiping account, and Perez Hilton is now just sharing screenshots of his blog posts.

○ Born: Aug, 1881, Freeport, IL.

○ always wanted to be a writer.

○ First job as a writer: the Society Doings in Dixon, IL.

○ Moved to Chicago in 1910.

○ Single mother of a girl, Harriet Parsons.

○ Worked at Essahay Studios as a screenwriter.

○ Got her own gossip column at the Chicago Herald 1915 - 1918.

○ Moved to New York City in 1918, and got a column at the Morning telegraph.

○ 1923 - hired by Hearst to write for the New York American.

○ Fought for a raise: from $120/week to $210/week.

○ Moved to Los Angeles in 1926.

○ Got her own radio show called “Hollywood Hotel” in 1931.

○ Changed affiliation from MGM to Warner Brothers in 1937.

○ Controlled Hollywood.

The year 1939 has a significant importance in history: The Second World War started in September after Nazy Germany invaded Poland, and European countries entered the war against Hitler’s ideologies. The United States, which was still neutral in the war, was experiencing the Golden Age of Hollywood. Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz were both premiering that year, and there were two of the most prominent celebrity columnists of the century starting a rivalry: Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons. The two small-town girls who achieved success in movie and celebrity gossip by creating connections with stars and studios in the 1920s and 1930s were now seen as competitors by readers, studios, and the media.

But let’s get back in time. By 1900, there were only 200 female writers in the United States. Coming from a new women’s movement, they wanted a career like their fathers and husbands, where they could get paid to do what they loved. Gossiping played an important role in women’s lives, especially in small towns, where Hopper and Parsons started their careers, as it was a way for women to build emotional and social bonds with one another and gain some power and status within their communities. These two talented women, however, ended up working for powerful men, who mainly thought of ways to attract readership. This way, columns were manipulated, and with that, Hollywood studios were able to control the narrative. Hopper and Parson knew of their worth, and soon disassociated themselves from powerful studios and started writing on their own without losing their audiences, and that is when their so-called rivalry was intensified by the media.

Louella Parsons

Louella Parsons was born in August of 1881 in Freeport, Illinois. She had always been ambitious, challenging the stereotypes that surrounded her gender from a young age. She wanted to grow up as fast as possible and was optimistic that she’d become one of the best writers in the country.

She started her career in 1902 as a part-time drama editor for a small newspaper in Dixon, IL, while she attended college to become an elementary school teacher. She wrote for a society page called Society Doings, with a $5 a week paycheck and without a byline. She moved to Chicago in 1910, where she would enter the motion picture industry. By this time she had married John Parsons, who left her for another woman, abandoning her as a single mother of one.

Once in the big city, she started working as a script editor for Essanay Studios, an early motion pictures studio known for its comedies, especially The Tramp starring Charlie Chaplin (1915). She helped select scripts

“First Lady of Hollywood”

Louella Parsons and Marilyn Monroe on the set of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1953.

that would eventually be turned into silent films, and as years went by she was promoted to writing her own scripts.

Essanay Studios is located in Andersonville, on the north side of Chicago, and even though it only ran from 1908 to 1915, part of the structure is still erected and was declared a Chicago Landmark in 1996. Besides Chaplin, Essanay starred Gloria Swanson — a three-time Academy Award nominee and a Golden Globe winner for her role in Sunset Boulevard — and cinema’s first cowboy hero, G. M. “Bronco Billy” Anderson. By the time Hollywood became the center of motion pictures, the company collapsed in 1917, leaving many local workers without a job, including Parsons, who had worked there for five years. The studio has been occupied by St. Augustine College, with the production space serving as Essanay Centers, and its auditorium is named after Charlie Chaplin.

Parsons found a new career path at the Chicago Herald shortly after being let off. Due to her experience in the motion pictures, she was acquainted with several stars, assisting her with the scoops of the industry. Her column Scene on the Screen would reveal the behindthe-scenes and reviews of new films, becoming one of the first movie gossip columnists in the country.

One powerful man, however, bought the Chicago Herald in 1918. William Randolph Hearst was an influential publisher of the San Francisco Examiner and the New York Journal, and by 1902 he had entered Chicago by establishing the Chicago American. Hearst came from a well-off family, having acquired

the best education his parents could pay for and had been ambitious since young. He entered the publishing world by taking over The Examiner at age 23, a newspaper his father had acquired as a payment for a gambling debt. His main competitor was Joseph Pulitzer, who was also changing journalism in the early 1900s.

Hearst was a man who thought about returns and readerships: he wanted to write about what people wanted to read and acquire sponsorships and revenue. To do so, he needed writers and journalists that would lie if needed and would avoid controversial pieces at all costs. When the Herald was bought, Parsons was immediately dismissed with the belief that movie columns were not in demand, when in reality, they did not want someone that would write controversial pieces. As she was being dismissed, she gathered her family and decided to move to New York City to start another chapter of her life

The movie industry had not taken off in the East Coast, and the motion picture scene was still relatively new in New York City. Parsons’s first job was with Morning Telegraph, which was investing in a new column, but since she was new in the city, she needed to network with the local stars to receive tips for her column. By 1923, however, she had made new friends, one being Marion Davies, who was coincidently William Hearst’s mistress. Knowing who she was and needing his affair to be kept under the radar, Hearst hired Parsons, giving her a contract to write a daily movie gossip column in the New York American. He was still married to actress Millicent Willson, who he separated in 1926 and only lawfully divorced in 1951. Parsons, believing in her talent, negotiated her paycheck with the powerful man: She was offered $120 a week, and after months of conversations, Hearst

“The Gossipist”

○ Born Elda Furry in June, 1890, Hollidaysburg, PA.

○ A single mother of a boy, William Hopper (after his father).

○ Changed her name to “Hedda” after her husband miscalled her by any of his four ex-wives, who all had similar names.

○ Started acting on silent films in 1915.

○ Moved to Hollywood in 1923.

○ Struggled as an actress, but made quick appearances in movies.

Known for wearing cool hats.

○ Made a lot of friends for being a natural gossiper.

○ 1938 - Hired as a gossip columnist at the Los Angeles Times to be Louella Parsons’ “rival.”

○ Created a special relationship with her readers.

Daily readership by mid- 1950s was about 32 million.

○ Controlled Hollywood.

gave into her rate of $250 a week. Parsons was now getting paid well and rising in the industry.

By the mid-1920s, however, Parsons was projecting a fantasy version of the dream factory that was the motion picture industry. In her eyes — or what she wanted the audience to believe — was that every celebrity had a heart of gold, and no one had ever done anything wrong.

Her competence influenced her move to Hollywood, where she would continue to work for Hearst and protect him — and his mistress — from being discovered by the readers. Her column became where stars would want to be at, and she was so powerful that she could easily manipulate celebrities to kiss up to her. Parsons got her own radio show on CBS in 1931 called Hollywood Hotel, where she would interview celebrities without paying them. By this time, she could ruin one’s career if one went against the columnist.

At this point Louella Parsons controlled Hollywood. She barely had any competition until another woman showed up in the newspaper industry: Hedda Hoppers, an actress-turned-

columnist who became Parsons’ direct rival.

Hedda Hoppers

Hedda Hopper was born

Elda Furry in June of 1885 in Hollidaysburg, PA in a Quaker farm community. One of nine children, Furry always had to fight for recognition of her talent and independence among her brothers. In 1888, her father sold the farm and moved to Altoona, opening a butcher shop, putting Furry to work with him at a young age. Because of her gender, he did not pay her a salary, leading the young lady to steal what she believed she was worth. She would save the money from the butcher shop so she could one day run away from home, which happened in 1898 when she finally moved to Pittsburgh.

At age twenty-two, Furry moved to New York City, where she decided to change her birth month from June to May, and her birth year from 1885 to 1890, making her seventeen years old on paper. She joined DeWolf Hopper’s theater company, who she eventually fell in love with and married in 1913 at the age of twenty-eight (or twenty-three in paper). He was fifty-five at the time (five years older than Furry’s father), had a bald head as a result of child tuberculosis, but wore amazing wigs to compensate for his hair loss. DeWolf also had a blue-tinted skin from gargling silver nitrate for a vocal condition, which gave him a great voice, one thing Furry enjoyed. His four previous wives’ names were: Ella, Ida, Edna, and Ella, making “Elda ‘’ too confusing for the man. Furry paid $10 for a numerologist to choose her a new name, and that is how “Hedda Hopper” was born in 1918.

She lived in New York with her husband until their divorce in 1922 caused by his infidelities and demands. After their son was born in 1915, Hedda decided to turn a blind eye to her husband’s flirtations with other women and started to build her career as an actress. He had asked her to give it up to take care of their child when in reality he was jealous of Hopper’s success in acting and silent films. For example, she got paid $1000 a week to appear in a film, which appalled DeWolf since that was more than his paychecks. As their divorce concluded, she moved to Hollywood to continue her career.

Hedda Hopper, date unknown.

Hopper started her acting career in silent movies in 1915, with her motion picture debut The Battle of Hearts (1916). Even though she was never the star of the films she worked on, Hoppers would use her paycheck to beautify her wardrobe so that she would stand out in her roles. It was never unnoticed, since Louella Parsons noticed the efforts and nicknamed the actress the “queen of the quickies” due to her brief appearances in scenes.

When Hollywood shifted from silent films to voiced ones, Hopper was one of the few actors that survived the change. She had a voice that was usually connected to society women, but by the age 45, she was receiving fewer roles, as the studios were hiring younger actresses for her roles.

Being in the industry meant that Hoppers knew everyone and everything, but her acting career did not last long. MGM ended her contract in 1932, leaving her unemployed and needing to figure out a new occupation. The change in her career did not change her routine, as she would still be invited to events and mingle with the Hollywood elites.

Hopper worked as a real estate agent, did some stage work, and even had a job at a cosmetic firm before starting the career that was going to put her in the spotlight.

Her friend and columnist Eleanor Cissy Patterson offered Hopper a position to write about fashion in Hollywood at Hearts’ Washington Herald, but in 1937, Hopper received a better offer: the Esquire Syndicate wanted to start a gossip column, and contacted MGM press agent Andy Hervey for a recommendation. Hervey, who knew Hopper was a natural gossiper, suggested her for the job, and on February 14, 1938 the Los Angeles Times started carrying her column in their papers. Her first article was

about how her son had changed her life for the better. There were grammatical errors that affected her reputation as a writer, so instead of improving it, she created her own style: “outspoken bitchiness” and as a result, it attracted more readers to her column. She was fifty-five years old when her real career began.

But the article that put her in the spotlight as a competition for Parsons’ column was Hopper’s exclusive interview with James Roosevelt, the eldest son of Franklin Roosevelt, where she confronted him about his marriage in 1940. His refusal to comment on whether he was getting a divorce or not was the answer Hopper was looking for and exposed his public life: a detailed piece on his separation from his wife and his appearances with another woman. The cover news was picked up nationally by various newspapers, putting Hopper’s name in the known as someone who collapsed boundaries between the public and the private, the political and the personal.

Politics had always been a point of interest in Hopper’s life, and even though she was advised to not mix gossip with politics, the conservative

From

top: Hedda Hopper (left) and Louella Parsons (right), 1939 Jayne Mansfield gets a lift from Bob Hope as a USO troupe prepares to leave for overseas performances for the military. Johnny Grant, left, Hedda Hopper and Roscoe Ates look on, Dec. 16, 1957

Louella Parsons (left) with Hedda Hopper (far right), 1939 Rosemary Lane, Louella Parsons, and Dick Powell in Hollywood Hotel, 1937

woman fought to expose communist members of Hollywood, going as far as blacklisting them due to the power she held in the film industry.

Start of the rivalry

Movie columns were the way studios found to have control over their films, image, and actors. They controlled Hopper and Parsons to write what was requested by these studios and the gossip shared by their connection with Hollywood stars. By 1937, Parsons started losing touch with her columns and being disliked by the industry. After changing affiliation from MGM to Warner Brothers, the executives from the studios began to look for someone that could reach a similar level of importance in movie gossip and compete with Parsons. Hoppers entered the scene as a competitor, and no one expected her quick rise to success.

Parsons’ “downfall” started in 1937, when her good friend and actress Carole Lambard told the columnist how she was not planning on marrying her boyfriend Clark Gable anytime soon, but that if they changed their minds, the writer would be the first to know. Even though Parsons did not believe her words, due to the lack of gossip and being close to a deadline before leaving town for the weekend, she put the confession she had just heard on her column. The couple eloped that same weekend, and gave the scoop to every paper in the Los Angeles area, including Hoppers, while Parsons missed the event.

The Hollywood gossip column was the proximity to movie stars that people wanted, and Hoppers being a star helped solidify her column in the Los Angeles Times. Her tone was more conversational compared to Parsons, but what attracted readership in the late 1930s and early 1940s was that the publication was becoming very political, making gossip lie in the same importance as world news. Many in the industry believed that Hopper’s cruel gossip was due to jealousy since she had failed as an actress, but she was simply trying her best at her job.

Parsons and Hopper’s feud was created by the media, but they also disliked each other in real life. They refused to attend events together, and if they were in the same location, they demanded to be seated as far away from each other as possible. They were rude to each other but made sure to have

nice words about the other’s kids.

Similar to Parsons, Hopper understood her power in the industry, and if a celebrity refused to be interviewed by the columnist, she would insult or ignore them in the papers. Actress Merle Oberon asked Hopper why she wrote cruel things in her column, to which she responded: “bitchery, dear. Sheer bitchery.” As the competitiveness continued, Hopper would also hurt and humiliate those that would choose Parsons instead of her.

In 1947, TIME magazine’s July issue had Hopper on the cover, titling her “The Gossiper.” They mentioned her feud with Parsons, but recognized her battle for acceptance in the movie industry, as well as her career as a writer. They described her as “a self-appointed judge and censor of all that goes into Hollywood,” as well as acknowledging her as a “fighter from the start,” explaining her early battle to run away from her farm in Pennsylvania.

The decentralization of studios shifted the rules behind columnists’ approach to direct gossip, but Hopper was able to transition to television as it had become more accessible for Americans to purchase

Hedda Hopper in the cover of TIME magazine for their August issue in 1947.

one. Her TV special Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood in 1960 attracted an unexpected audience, validating her popularity after years of newspaper work and building a relationship with her audience.

However, three years after the show, her career went downhill: She released her second book, The Whole Truth and Nothing But dedicated to her son Bill. It was an instant success until a lawsuit was filed against her allusion to a homosexual relationship between actors Michael Wilding and Stuard Grager. For the first time in her career, her words had a consequence, and Wilding won the case against Hopper.

In 1965, Parsons retired due to medical problems, and she was placed in a retirement home at the age of 84. Two months after her announcement, Hopper passed away after complications from double pneumonia in February of 1966. Parsons’ daughter Harriet delivered the

news to her mother, who simply responded with “good” after a long pause. Parsons lived six more years before passing away of arteriosclerosis at 91 on December 9, 1972.

These two columnists left the legacy of creating an industry of gossiping in Hollywood, challenging powerful men of the studios and achieving success after working hard. They created — and destroyed — careers, fueling fear that maintained their force in the gossiping industry. The tabloid world has changed a lot since but similar manners have stayed present: the public’s interest in the private, rumors becoming news, and the invasion of privacy continue to disturb celebrities’ lives, but over sixty years after Hopper and Parsons’ reign in Hollywood, we have social media controlling what these people say or do. Are we the new Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons? Only time will tell.

Hedda Hopper eavesdropping on Louella Parsons.

The Keyword of the 2000s Consent

The Keyword of the 2000s

Teen celebrities have come out and mentioned how difficult growing up in front (and behind) the cameras are, especially for the girls. Sexualization comes from every area of the industry, and no adult was taken for granted for the words they have utilized to deascribe these young actors. This piece is an examination of early 2000s Rolling Stone interviews where pop stars of the time were sexualized and objectified at a young age.

In August 2004, Rolling Stone released their Lindsay Lohan cover during one of the best years of her career. She was coming out of the success of Freaky Friday and was the protagonist of two movies: Mean Girls and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. Beautiful and talented, girls looked up to her; so did grown men, though a little too much for someone her age. Donald Trump even stated in an interview with Howard Stern that same year about how “deeply troubled women” are always “the best in bed,” referring to Lohan herself.

The interview starts with an important statement: Lohan felt the need to confirm that “her breasts are real.” She had been “eighteen for just under a week,” as the reporter Mark Binelli states, followed by how a gentleman never asks such questions, though for his reporting — which he described as “discreet visual fact checking, a goodbye hug” — he confirms her statement about her body parts. Her breasts had been a topic of discussion long enough that the actress felt forced to state the “obvious” before it was asked.

The cover photo of the magazine is arguably “sexy,” even though she wears a black top, with her hands behind her back while her long, red hair goes wild. She is smiling, while doing that tongue thing where you roll it back — something that can be considered wild and sexy. The cover line says “Hot, Ready, and Legal!” The last one being a keyword utilized by many reporters to describe celebrities — usually female — that had just completed their eighteenth year on Earth. It is legal now for them to be sexualized by older

men, to be seen as an adult; it is legal to talk about their bodies and make sex jokes about them.

Lohan’s interview is just one example of what sold back then. Just a year before that, Stone had two big teen celebrities on the cover of their magazine. Seventeen-year-olds Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were the stars of the September 2003 edition. However, during the interview, the reporter describes how the twins were sexualized by “college-age guys” that walked by them at a diner, where the interview was being held, and noticed how hot they were. One of the boys suggested to his friend that “[he’d] take the one on the left, [and his friend] take the other.” A few paragraphs down, reporter Jancee Dunn — a female this time around — mentions how “bars and websites feature a countdown to the twins’ eighteenth birthday,” and Howard Stern mentions them on the air regularly by stating how men can “avoid persky jail time and legal fees” for sexualizing the teen girls once they are finally legal.

The age of consent varies throughout States, and while in California — where most celebrities resided during the 2000s — it is eighteen, the age can go as low as sixteen in other states, creating the stigma that those people are allowed to spectate teenagers differently. Men had the audacity to objectify those innocent girls because they could, and for the sake of their careers, these same girls had to smile and nod. If you sit down and read interviews from that time, they are usually written by male reporters about female celebrities, focusing not only on their careers but also their personal lives and bodies.

In the Olsen twins’ case, the reporter was female. While the description of the girls was not sexual in any way, Dunn made sure to comment on their looks particularly about how short and skinny they were; she reminded readers that the ideal body is a size zero, which the twins were, and how they were therefore attractive. However, the interview points out the harassment which being in the spotlight causes. They were asked about their virginity when they were sixteen, and explain how they were affected when bikini photos of them were taken and shared by paparazzis from their vacation.

Britney Spears is another celebrity who was sexualized from an early age; the combination of innocence with a sex appeal caused many to look forward to her eighteenth birthday in 1999. Her first Rolling Stone that year, when she was still seventeen years old. The cover has the seventeen year-old singer lying on a pink silk cover, holding a phone to her ear with her left hand while holding Tinky Winky — the purple Teletubby — close to her with her right arm. She wears a black bikini top and a black polka-dot silky shorts, looking directly at the camera — us — as if trying to innocently seduce the reader. The cover line tells us that we are gonna get “inside her head, mind, and bedroom of a Teen Dream.” The bedroom mention comes from again the interviewer entering her room and examining where the girl grew up, but the photoshoot utilizing her doll collection in the background contrasts her innocent past with her sexualized career,

making it clear that the combination of both looks attracts people.

It took Steven Daly, the reporter, four paragraphs to mention her career and her best-selling album … Baby One More Time. He started by describing her appearance during the interview by checking her “honeyed thigh across the length of the sofa” out and describing her “BABY PHAT logo of [her] pink T-shirt” that was “distended by her ample chest” as well as noticing her “silky white shorts that clings to her hips.” In the second paragraph, the reporter admits that the trap is “carefully baited” by her debut video — the one where she’s dancing “like the naughtiest schoolgirls,” meaning that because Spears’ music video was meant to be sexy, men were allowed to sexualize her. He contradicted himself in less than a sentence. This interview does not mention how close she is to the “legal age,” yet it is heavily implied by how the reporter describes her in the beginning. He tries to diminish his wronging with Spears’ words where she clarifies that she dresses up as any seventeen year old of 1999, and that she makes music for people of her age as well as older generations. In 2003, Spears came out to GQ by saying that she felt tricked into doing the highly sexualized cover at the age of 16.“[I] didn’t really know what the hell I was doing…I was back in my bedroom, and I had my little sweater on and he was like, ‘Undo your sweater a little bit more.’ The whole thing was about me being into dolls, and in my naïve mind I was like, ‘Here are my dolls!’ and now I look back

- Britney Spears for GQ about her 1999 Rolling Stones cover at the age of 17

and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what the hell?’”

Just like Daly, many other reporters got away with sexualizing teens by utilizing the magic word that made everything they say legal, because once you are eighteen, they have the green light to say what they want any way they’d like.

Consent in the early 2000s meant that grown adults, especially male, had the right to sexualize teen girls. Once they were eighteen, people could “start” to notice their breasts, their hips and make jokes regarding their sexual lives. Being legal meant that your image would sell if you had little to no clothes on the cover of magazines.

Stone’s demographic today is 60% male, in which 26% (the majority in this case) ages ranging between 25-34. It is possible that the male percentage was even higher in the early 2000s due to the sexualization of female celebrities by the magazine. Unlike today when online articles and magazines are preferred, in the early 2000s the readers would buy the physical magazines, creating the need for appealing covers and stories that interested these audiences. Celebrities would agree to these needs for their own good — their careers would continue to fly if they were in people’s minds, for better or worse.

Britney Spears’ branding was the innocent girl gone wild, while Lindsey Lohan, Mary-Kate and Ashley were celebrities people watched grow up on their screens, and now it was time to see if these child stars would go bad after becoming legal adults.

The age of consent blurred the lines

between the legal age of the teens and the legal age men were allowed to confess their obsession for young girls without looking like pedophiles. Being sexualized as a woman was already habitual, yet claiming that these celebrities were “just shy of being legal” was an innuendo to admitting that they check out young girls. These girls were traumatized by the industry, which harassed

“

I was back in my bedroom, and I had my little sweater on and he was like, ‘Undo your sweater a little bit more.”

The Line Between Gossip Reporting

This is a blind item. They are gossip columns that hide the identities of the people discussed on the post, as well as the author being anonymous. Instead, they leave clues for readers to untangle; the subject is simply it’s occupation and rank (i.e. B-list actor, A-list musician, etc) followed by the gossip of a certain celebrity. These posts become a conversation thread where people discuss potential names that match the riddle. Blogs such as Crazy Days and Nights and Laney Gossip started in the early 2000s, and the game of figuring the celebrity out attracted readers that were hungry for fresh gossip. But here’s the thing. You can solve the riddle, but there is no proof that what was posted is true, so in the end, it’s just a game; it is not a reliable source.

According to the American Press Institute, journalism “is the activity of gathering, assessing, creating, and presenting news and information. It is also the product of these activities.” However, tabloid journalism tends to be left out of that category, being considered “soft news,” since the stories being told might hold only the “entertainment interest” of readers.

The question is whether journalism and gossip coexist in the same seriousness of the profession. The drawback of tabloids is that their content is considered gossip; rumors that they try proving with “sources” that are rarely mentioned. With social media being part of people’s lives in many ways nowadays, the ease of accessing information about

a certain celebrity allows for rumors to be started about the same. Tabloids still have a substantial part in the spread of false information, but fans and ordinary people are beginning to have an impact in the escalation of the gossip, and even without concrete evidence, some conclude that the lie is at least partially true.

Enty is the creator of Crazy Days and Nights and in November of 2006, started posting the insides he’d get as an entertainment lawyer. Having that knowledge puts him in danger of getting lawsuits if discovered, therefore creating a pseudonym name was his first step to anonymity. That way, no publicist or celebrity can track his real identity, refraining them from suing him. Enty has explained in interviews that he does a little bit of research before “revealing” the celebrity suggested in the blind item — he would only post big reveals or serious blinds from sources that he is directly connected with and trusts. Would looking for proof be considered part of reporting, since blind items are usually answered and “confirmed” by people that were around the situation — the “sources” tabloids love to use?

His blog is more accessibly organized, and what attracts readers is Crazy Days and Nights is one of the only blind item websites to actually reveal the answer to the riddle. The blind items are separated

“Speaking of secrets, this A- list actress who is a celebrity offspring of at least one person higher on the list, should ask her A list actor boyfriend why he is on Raya every day hitting on women and saying he is single.”

Anonymous Blogger

by the year posted, with subdivisions categorized by weeks. As of June 14th, there are over 2930 blinds posted with about over 150 of them being “resolved”. The item mentioned earlier is of Zoe Kravitz and Channing Tatum that was posted earlier this year. To be revealed, Enty needed some type of proof to be more reliable. Until proven, fans and readers have the option to ignore the gossip or believe them, which can elevate the spread of the rumor online.

Enty is also credited with exposing Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and Matt Lauer before “traditional media” exposed their wrongdoings. For example, Lauer’s blind from April 2014 says “This television talk show host likes to show the world that he has the perfect marriage and life but he rarely sleeps at home at night any longer and has quietly been hooking up with a woman who used to be an employee on the show and now seems to do nothing but wait for our talk show host to visit.” Reports about his misconduct started to appear in the media in 2017 and ever since his career has gone downhill. Because blind items websites are a niche in the tabloid world and usually have no concrete proof, they are not taken seriously, but it is a good starting point for reporters.

While Enty rightfully exposed those men, he has said that he would never out a celebrity, and he will not talk about people’s children. Those are out of his focus because those information should only be shared with consent, which the media hasn’t always respected.

Blind items could be ignored, but with increasing competitiveness for fresh gossip in the media and the interest of fans, it is almost impossible nowadays. Readers tend to believe that a source is reliable after discovering that they have shared legitimate gossip before. Celebrities and their publicists decide whether the leaked information was serious enough to publish a statement, or if maintaining silence is the way to deal with it. Usually, they are more concerned about who leaked the information rather than controlling the gossip.

History

Before the Internet era, blind items already existed as a form of blackmail. In the 1800s, a man named William d’Alton Mann published a weekly magazine called Town Topics, which became the

location of various threats. For example, he would post a section about how the mayor’s wife was seen being intimate with another man. A copy of the article would be printed and Mann would go to the wife with this piece of information with hopes of blackmailing her into paying a certain amount to have it removed from the print edition. That way, one blind item at a time, Mann terrorized the city and it became something mainly used in the entertainment industry.

Social Media

Tiktok has brought light back to blind items, where even Enty has entered the social media scene with exclusive blinds not found on his blog. With the username “entylawyer”, the blogger shares blinds and stories about specific celebrities that have been shared on his website. Enty, however, is not the only account sharing rumors on the platform.

A similar idea is used by Deuxmoi on Instagram. Also run anonymously, the url itself was created by an anonymous woman and her friend in 2013 to create a lifestyle and fashion website where they would interview fashionistas and give shopping tips, but they switched to using it only as a blind page during quarantine in 2020. Tipsters — those who share the rumors — claim to be insiders of the industry: assistants, friends, publicists, nannies, flight attendants, and even drivers. Similarly to the blogs from the mid-2000s and early-2010s, the

DMs and emails the account receives are shared anonymously. Its popularity helped the account to be more precise; they knew about Beyonce’s British Vogue cover in December 2020 two weeks in advance of its release, and they also speculated about Emily Ratajowski’s pregnancy weeks before it was made public.

The popularity of the account and its young audience helped Deuxmoi to come up with catchphrases and codenames. For example, “Chris Noth Trigger Warning” is used when sharing a celebrity’s picture without their permission, and “VPD (Very Pretty D*ck)” is often used by those who claim to have been intimate with a star. Certain celebrities that come up often on Deuxmoi also have nicknames: “Headphone Dino Bones” refers to Leonardo DiCaprio, codename created after blinds of him having sex with headphones and claims that he collects dinosaur bones were shared on the account, and “Save the Turtle” is Adrien Grenier (from Entourage and The Devil Wears Prada) who, according to some other blinds also has some “VPD”.

Deuxmoi — or the “curators of pop culture” like they call themselves on Instagram — has made it clear that what they share has not been independently verified, and that they merely share

gossip. The 1.4 million followers are enthusiastic, allowing Deuxmoi to have its own merchandise with a collection of sweatshirts with quotes like “anon plz.” referring to the email format they receive. The feed itself is mostly memes, and Instagram stories are where blinds are shared.

Both Deuxmoi and Crazy Days and Nights have never been sued. That is because they never claim something to be true without any proof, and because most speculations are anonymous. By claiming to simply share rumors and stay away from reporting, they are safe to work with blind items without getting in trouble. Blinds are, however, a good start for reporters and journalists to get deep into rumors and find the truth behind them. By doing so, gossip and journalism can co-exist in the same world. However, it is on the readers to separate the value reporters have from that of bloggers who simply share what they hear without any proof. And it is also up to us to decide whether we want to believe in a rumor or not — fans will decide whether what they are reading seems plausible or otherwise.

This is how rumors start, and how gossip gets out of hand. Blind Items are simply glamourized gossip. They are like school rumors, where one person distorts information and when it circles back, the information is different. This misinformation

Blinds from Deuxmoi’s Instagram stories

can cause celebrities to look bad, but in good instances, these rumors can kick off an intense investigation that can lead to a serious source — think Weinstein. A fun game of riddle has been the place where insiders of the entertainment industry share their knowledge without getting sued, and if we closely pay attention and explore these blinds, we might pick up something that has not yet been discovered by traditional media.

From a Blind to News

When a blind item becomes more than a rumor, it is usually a scandal that needs to have its story told. This was the case of Ronan Farrow, son of actress and activist Mia Farrow and director Woody Allen, who released one of the most important pieces of his career in 2017.

On October 10, The New Yorker published his article “From Aggressive Overtures to Sexual Assault: Harvey Weinstein’s Accusers Tell Their Stories,” where Farrow gathered several accounts of sexual harassment and assaults by the director. For decades, there were whispers about a possible sexual misconduct by the film director, and Farrow states that several publications, including The New Yorker, report on this issue, yet they “fell short of the demands of journalistic evidence.”

For example, one of the earliest blind items available online about the director and his “favors” was posted on Lainey Gossip the end of 2009. The blog post describes a “Casting Couch” blind, which talks about an actress whose career was dying, and in a desperate attempt, offered to exchange “her sexual services for his professional services.”

The item also states that it was not the first time this actress recurred to this director for help, and the more he rejected her, the more she’d “humiliate herself” to get the career she saw him “create” to other popular names in Hollywood.

Lainey describes the director as a married man, who is a legend in the business. She also details this supposed encounter that the actress had with the director and a third man, “both of them enjoying her as she allowed herself to be taken, and, um, decorated appropriately” just to be able to read a script, with no promises of actually working on it.

The actress was revealed to be Gretchen Mol (An American Affair, Broadway Empire), who this director, whose description resembled Weinstein, cut off right after the encounter to focus on a third “blondie” whose career was taking off, believed to be Blake Lively.

Fast forward six years, Farrow spent ten months researching and connecting with victims, spending over two years investigating the story, conducting interviews and finding documents that incriminated them. For this article, he included thirteen women who had been sexually assaulted or harrassed by Weinstein between 1999 and

If blind items were being shared for so long, why did it take this long to be publictly? When you are powerful in Hollywood, you have your ways of silencing people. The director and his associates allegedly paid victims and witnesses off, threatened them, or the sole reason of being such a power in the industry might have scared them off as well. Fear of retaliation, especially if you’re women, silenced several people that decided to look the other way when a harassment occurred.

Weinstein diminished the accusations by stating that he was only “compliment people, and some took it as me being sexual, [I] won’t do that again,” or claimed the acts were consensual. Worst case scenario, if the women spoke

out and his name was in tabloids and news outlets, his favorite way of revenge was gossip itself, making sure that these women’s careers are destroyed by sharing something intimate or “career-ending” about them.

Farrow won several awards for this reporting, including a Pulitzer Prize for public service, besides helping the launch of the #MeToo movement. Being in the industry for as long as he lived, did he hear about Weinstein’s case through whispers, or did he hear it simply for being in the industry?

Being son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen came with being in the spotlight from very young. Coming from Hollywood royalty, he was also raised in a family that had very public history of sexual harassment allegations. His older sister, Dylan Farrow, accused their father, Allen, in 1992 of sexually abusing her when she was only seven, and his mother found explicit photos of her other

daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, who was 21 at the time, that were taken by her then-husband.

A whisper, a rumor, or a blind item led Farrow and many other reporters to run after leads that would expose the stories behind those riddles. These discoveries are finally exposing years of Hollywood men’s privileges and the ease to sweep violence and abuse under the rug, but that was able to ruin — or at least make them look bad enough — the careers of those that actually deserve it. Blind items can be something harmless like a new couple alert, but if you dig the hole deep enough and pay attention to what is being shared, you discover that Hollywood is not as glamorous as they once tried to be to outsiders. The #MeToo movement has finally given these blind items more recognition, and those who share the information tend to be safe, since no author’s names were shared.

“Casting

Couch”

Blind Item by Lainey Gossip, December 2009.

Interview: Shannon McNamara (@fluentlyforward)

McNamara gained popularity on her account after sharing blind items of TikTok star Addison Rae. What she did not expect was to receive a shower of comments asking what a blind item was. Ever since explaining the idea behind blinds and which blogs were popular, her followers started to share interest in hearing about their favorite celebrities, helping her grow on the platform.

She believes that most of the people who submit blind items are caterers or extras on a film set, and people who had an experience or oversaw something by a certain celebrity. McNamara herself has talked to Enty before, who states that after posting a certain blind item, the publicist or representative of this celebrity would contact them trying to revert the situation, and in some cases share a different gossip in order to defend their client, giving more items to be shared online.

McNamara used Bill and Melinda Gates as an example of how media is involved with reverting critical situations created by blind items. The ex-wife of the billionaire used the online platforms to take herself out of the scandal when it was discovered that Gates and Jeffrey Epstein knew each other and have hung out plenty of times. The TikToker finds it difficult to believe Melinda’s claims that she had never met with Epstein or that she did not know anything about her exhusband’s friendship with the same. This is where blind items come in handy, providing evidence and contradicting certain statements.

McNamara, who accidentally entered the blind items world in 2020 has 19.4 thousand followers on her TikTok account and 11.5 thousand on her Instagram. She has also started a podcast of the same name (Fluently Forward) where she talks about blind items, its history, and even collaborates with other podcasters in the same genre to talk about conspiracy theories and the entertainment industry.

The blogger-turned-celebrity who rose to fame through name-calling, exposing secrets and being loved or hated by celebrities.

Is he canceled?still

Mario Lavandeira was a receptionist for the E! Entertainment network when Janice Dickinson, a model who was popular in 2004 due to being a judge at America’s Next Top Model, entered the building. As she made her way to the bathroom, she left her purse with her assistant, who went through looking for the model’s prescription bottle and shoved the pills into the pocket of his pants. That was something he decided to recap on his newly built website PageSixSixSix.com, where he would usually share celebrity gossip. This, however, got him fired the next day.

This was not the first time Lavandeira got in trouble and lost his job. He was let go of his previous job as a senior editor at Instinct, one of the biggest gay magazines at the time. Because of its popularity, the magazine would receive books from publishers to review and because of the high demand, some would be left behind and forgotten. Lavandeira, who needed money to survive in Los Angeles, decided to sell those books online, but because those titles were not published yet, it was illegal to be sold. An editor of their rival magazine found his account online and told Instinct about his wrongdoing, causing him to be fired.

The blog was created in 2004, and after being let go from two jobs, Lavandeira could not afford the big city anymore, and decided to move back to New York in February 2005. He was hired as a freelancer by some weeklies like In Touch and Star magazines, while also devoting his spare time to his blog. At this point, he didn’t care about what was appropriate or not to comment on because all he wanted to do was write about celebrities.

This was when his website started to be noticed (and even hated) by more people. He got a call from The Insider explaining that they were doing a feature on Hollywood’s most hated websites, him getting the number one spot. Lavandeira was taken back, but allowed them to put him on TV because that meant more traffic for his blog. This opportunity gave him a permanent position at Star magazine, and they even allowed him to continue with the blog as they did not see it as a conflict of interest.

Getting this spotlight on TV also got him his first lawsuit of his life: the New York Post sued him for using the domain PageSixSixSix — they already had a gossip column called PageSix — and since

he had no way of affording a lawyer, he had no choice but to give up the domain, but he saw this opportunity to also change his name in the process of rebranding.

Thus Perez Hilton was born. He chose his first artistic name to pay homage to the outsider, the Latino inside him, who grew up lonely and bullied in school. Hilton was chosen for the power Paris Hilton had in Hollywood, showcasing the mainstream side of Mario. He wanted to use a pseudonym to protect himself from the real world and create a character that would separate his personal from his public individual.

His signature white scrawl over pictures that were usually degrading and mean towards celebrities shaped the idea that a certain star was indeed problematic. Even though his targets varied, the 2000s biggest stars that were always in the news won the spotlight in his blogs — Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears.

Perez was not afraid to offend, and shamelessly promoted himself everywhere he went. Even though it took him about two years to start making money with it, his blog became popular fast, needing the gossiper to devote about 17 hours a day online. He was able to move back to Los Angeles and utilized a cafe called Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf as his office for a long time. He could barely afford rent in the City of Angels, and definitely could not afford a technician to come into his apartment to connect the Internet he needed for his blog.

His big break came in the form of Brangelina (a ship name — where fans combine the couple’s names — that he came up with). In May of 2005, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie went public with their relationship. They flew to Africa on vacation together, and a paparazzo took pictures of the couple, but did not immediately put them up for sale until they had left the country and flown home, which can be an indication that it had been arranged by them and the photo agency. Hilton had a source who told him about the trip and the photos, which he posted and then broke the story

“No matter how much of an insider I ever become or am, I’ll still always be an outsider.”

that same day with these leaked images, becoming the first to share the news online. Suddenly, he was famous and his blog was a hit, crashing that same week.

By 2007, his blog had achieved 8.82 million pageviews per day, and advertisers were willing to pay high in order to appear in his website, with ad packs reaching $45,000. It helped escalate his work to become amongst the top ten entertainment sites in that same year, according to Comscore Media Metrix, a platform that studies and evaluates audiences online.

His success scored a TV deal with his reality show What Perez Sez premiering in 2007. In the special, each installment would highlight interviews and award show moments of celebrities that were willing to talk to him, and on the Video Music Awards’ special on VH1, Perez interviewed some of the artists that were nominated or that would perform at the award shows like Amy Winehouse and P!nk. The episodes were about three minutes long, composed with short, quick interviews that included comments from the host himself, as well as his branded white scrawl that would comment on what the artists were saying. Released on September 11, 2007, this “reality show” had four episodes, each one focusing on a theme. The VMAs was the first episode of the special. Clips from the show are difficult to find, and based on the short-lived series, it did not do well on cable. Episodes were shown during commercial breaks instead of taking up the hour-long spot on VH1.

Perez would get personal with the artists he interviewed, and while he was not rude to them, he would mention other celebrities out of nowhere just to bring them down. Some interviews felt awkward, and because of the fame and power Perez had at the time, celebrities might have felt necessary to be on his good side. In an episode with British pop-star Amy Winehouse, he calls Beyoncé something that was bleeped out, which assuming by Winehouse’s response, would be something along the lines of “a bitch” — the singer went to defend Beyoncé by saying that you have to be a bitch when you have people on your face all the time. Even though never in any episodes, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were brought up often when Perez would want to make a negative comparison. They were called “a mess” by the host, and he even poked fun at how much

“ One of the theories that Britney‘s camp is trying to disseminate is that Spears’ erratic behavior last night was due to her missing her hourly dosage of her bipolar medication.

“That’s bullshit,” a medical expert tell us.

There’s no bipolar medication that requires you to take a dose EVERY hour!!!

Plus, it takes more than missing one dose to trigger an episode.

Excuses. Excuses. Excuses.

If Britney had a breakdown, that’s one thing. If she was high on drugs, that’s another. But don’t come up with bullshit lies!”

weight the twins had lost. Despite the fact that the child stars had opened up about their eating disorder, Perez had no filter when talking about people’s bodies and weights at the time.

The short videos that were released as promotional clips for the show also included the quirky side of Perez. Usually about thirty seconds long, the videos are now available on the blogger’s YouTube page, and they include him showing a garden gnome, calling it his “mini me” who “also doubles as a butt plug,” as well as him mentioning going to the VMAs while holding a whip “in case Britney gets out of hand.”

This special reality only showcased how the blogger’s online persona worked in front of the camera, as well as the power he held over celebrities. This gave Perez a lack of responsibility when saying whatever he wanted just to get a laugh or a click on his blog, giving him money for being rude to artists.

However, by 2014, his blog’s view count had decreased, after his rebrand — he had stopped calling people ugly names and had changed his tone in his writing. He was now mainly reposting news originally broken by other tabloids such as Us Weekly and TMZ. Similarly, his social media in the 2010s featured cautious gossiping that was not original content. The man who once broke stories and new content was now relying on others to post.

“No matter how much of an insider I ever

become or am, I’ll still always be an outsider.”

Those were the words Perez wrote in his 2020 memoir TMI: My Life in Scandal. After years of being a gossip queen, as he titled himself, he came to apologize for his acts while still bringing up gossip from his past.

However, even when he was changing, backlash was inevitable. In 2016, Angelina Jolie’s lawyers contacted him over his coverage of the Brangelina divorce, asking for his post to be corrected or deleted. Hilton utilized his Instagram account to share his reply to the email, claiming that he had done everything right and that he was “not changing anything.” He also reminded the lawyers (and his followers) how he has “ALWAYS been a huge fan and SUPPORTER of hers!!” and claiming that he wants an apology unless they want him to be turned into her enemy. His attempt to clean his

name worked, because soon after reports said that Jolie indeed apologized to Hilton.

Analyzing some of Perez’s posts about the divorce, he had sorely based his information off other sources, and simply commented on the issues. Always on Jolie’s side, he utilized interviews she’d given to different platforms to defend her. He mentions the alleged domestic abuse evidence against Pitt, as well as the tension between the excouple. The posts are still live, and Hilton seems to be clear in his intentions to report and defend the actress. It is important to note that his posts do not have dates anymore, whether it is to hide his past or in case of new controversies, to protect himself by claiming it was old news.

In the era of cancel culture, screenshots of his old posts started resurfacing on Twitter, especially after 2021’s Framing Britney documentary, which showed gossip bloggers and tabloids’ invading the singer’s privacy and how the stalking affected her life.

He has since acknowledged how toxic his work and words were, and has apologized countless times since. In his book, he mentions the fear he had during his peak circa 2007 of changing his delivery in the blog and losing readers. He opened up about his guilt which sounds truthful where he accepts the wrong in certain actions he’s done in the

“I have a ton of regrets, particularly because I now see that I never needed to be so mean or cruel.”

, “I was unkind to the children of celebrities. Some of them were really young, others teenagers, and it makes no difference that I

Madonna, circa 1980s Madonnez Hilton

“I’m like Madonna, I’m not afraid to offend”

-

Perez Hilton in one of several self-generated comparisons to the pop star

really believed in what I was writing. I also regret that I thought it was OK to out celebrities. That is something I no longer believe.”

This said, he still causes drama among newer generations of social media users. Perez was permanently banned from TikTok in 2020 for violating community guidelines after he made a few inappropriate comments about underage kids. He had become popular on the app, gaining 1.6 million followers with an average of 10 million views per week. Perez said in an interview in December of 2020 that the app “gave [him] something to really look forward to every day” during a difficult year where he claims to have been “very depressed,” and had become his escape. Fun, easy, and young, TikTok created opportunities for 2000s celebrities to resurface years after their original success.

Perez decided to create beef with Charli D’Amelio, the biggest star on the app, by commenting on her dancing video in March of 2020. “Anyone else think it’s inappropriate for a 15-year-old to dance to this?” commented the blogger on her post, in which the teenager responded with “i’m sorry i’m just trying to have fun! :)” In the video, the girl is dancing to a remix of the song “Sugar” by Brockhampton wearing a bikini. D’Amelio — the most followed TikToker —

was backed by her millions of fans, who petitioned to have Hilton removed from the app. Later, Hilton utilized his other social media appealing for this ban to be revoked, crying on an apology video and asking the D’Amelio family’s help in gaining his account back. Well, he hasn’t.

A new generation is going after Perez for his actions, showing that the change he’s claimed to have gone through has not worked for his benefit, since he was mainly coming up with excuses for his actions. Scrolling through his website today you still see his brand, the colors, the white scribbles, accompanied by light, straightforward headlines. His social media works similarly, being mostly reposts of his blog. He has his own podcast, where he talks about pop culture. He is a father of three, whom he talks openly about in the book, as well as on his YouTube, which is heart-warming.

It is hard to say if he has learned from his past mistakes, but there are definitely regrets. But with cancel culture being harsh, it is highly possible that they would lie to clear their images. We might not have completely forgiven him — and several similar gossip bloggers of the 2000s — but would bringing the past up a decade later actually help in the progress of celebrity gossip?

Perez Hilton’s post about the reply he had sent to Angelina Jolie’s lawyers redarding his posts about the divorce on @theperezhilton, October 8, 2016.

Review

We Owe Pamela Anderson an Apology

Hulu’s limited series takes us through the couple’s relationship from when their sex tape was stolen and released online to the media’s response to it.

Those are the words of Lily James’ Pamela Anderson in Hulu’s Pam & Tommy, where she tries to explain to her then-husband Tommy Lee, played by Sebastian Stan, the double standards of the media and the world.

The limited series is about the couple’s 1995 stolen sex tape and the way it affected both of their lives. We learn about their love story: from Lee’s obsession with the Baywatch actress that led him to stalk her until he got a date with her, to how they tied the knot after only four days of knowing each other. Because of how fast they got married, the show depicts a troubled marriage, with the couple learning new (and basic) things about each other throughout the eight episodes.

“I am going to be looked at like a slut by the whole world.”

Lily James and Sebastian Stan as Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee in Hulu’s series Pam & Tommy”, 2022

The plot revolves around Rand Gauthier, played by Seth Rogen, the contractor who broke into Lee’s mansion and stole his safe after being fired without pay. Gauthier plans the robbery and then sells the tape online, making this scandal the first celebrity video to be leaked online for a price. Its success grabbed the attention of entrepreneurs that invested in Internet pornography, which also becomes a small plot on the show.

The producers based Pam & Tommy on a 2014 Rolling Stone article because Anderson and Lee chose to not be involved in the series. The research is based on published works by the ex-couple in the past, but fictional moments of the couple’s intimacy were added to create more impact. However, being inspired by an article means it is mainly one-sided. The story is being told by Gauthier, and the increments of the romance and interviews in the show were based on what is available to us, not the actual facts that the couple lived through privately. This means whispers of the truth were used, but they are still violating the private life that Anderson was deprived of.

Going back to real life, Pamela Anderson, who is originally from Canada, had a difficult childhood. It was filled with abuse; from a babysitter, who molested her from ages six to ten, a

Pamela Anderson

○ B. July 1, 1967 in Ladysmith, Canada.

○ Modeled for Playboy cover 14 times.

friend’s boyfriend who tricked her into being alone with him, resulting in being raped at age 12, to her grade nine boyfriend and six of his friends gang raping her “for fun.” Even after all this trauma, she continued being positive, worrying about animals and human rights, and working towards the good that the world could still offer. However, It was her beautiful features that made her discovered.

She was featured on the jumbotron at a B.C. Lions football game, and soon after, she started her career with Playboy. Up until today, she believes that Hugh Hefner and Playboy helped break a barrier for women to feel sexy and comfortable in their skin. She believes that, contrary to expeculations by the media and society, women who posed for Playboy had the option to do the job, rather than being exploited or forced by Hefner. Therefore, she also believes that Playboy is not pornography.

Then there is Baywatch. The role she is known for, where she plays CJ, a lifeguard who runs in slow motion. The show explores the professional and personal lives of good looking lifeguards, and it became an instant hit, running for eleven seasons from 1989 to 2001. Its popularity was so important in pop culture that the red one-piece swimsuit is still an iconic piece in fashion.

○ She does not see posing nude as an industry that exploits women; she believes that Hugh Hefner gave women the option to work for Playboy, and that the pornography industry is what is violent towards women.

○ She has openly talked about being sexually abused as a child: “We naturally blame ourselves I did not tell my mother for a long time, and even when I told her she’s like ‘it’s in the past, don’t even think about it anymore.”

○ She has had an encounter with Harvey

Weinstein; he has threatened her after being considered “difficult” to work with on set for not wanting to work with animals. She was not surprised when accusations against him came out: “It’s common knowledge.”

○ She is an advocate for The National Domestic Violence Hotline. She had a difficult childhood, filled with abuse from a babysitter to an ex-boyfriend.

○ Pamela Anderson Foundation was founded in 2014, supporting the protection and preservation of human, animal and environmental rights.

However, Anderson is mainly known for the sextape in which Pam & Tommy is based on, due to an unfortunate turn of events. After being stolen from her own home, Anderson completely lost the right to her own body, and due to her past modeling gig with Playboy, she had no voice to protect herself from the violent media of the 1990s.

The nineties will be remembered for media violence against celebrities, or people in the spotlight in general. The rapid growth of the Internet and the demand for quick information, paparazzis had the best decade to make quick money, as long as they had a photo that others might not have yet. Think Princess Diana, who could never have alone time without a paparazzi following her around, Monica Lewinsky, who got harassed by the media after being involved with ex-president Bill Clinton, and even a young Britney Spears, who was still a teenager at the time, had to deal with cameras and flashes following them around.

So when Anderson and Lee’s sex tape got exposed online, they were the couple be harassed by them. Everyone wanted a quote, a photo, a moment that could easily become news, and to do so, paparazzis would camp outside the couple’s mansion, follow them around, even provoke them to get a reaction, because anything would sell.

Pam & Tommy shows exactly that. It is well made and the acting is exceptional. James’ physical appearance as Anderson is immaculate, and her performance embodies the struggles of a woman with no voice about her own body. Stan’s impersonation of the wild Mötley Crüe drummer

is believable, his obsession masked as love was forthcoming, and the chemistry between the two actors strengthened the love story between Lee and Anderson. The problem with the show is how violating it is for the real Pamela Anderson.

The directors claim that it was sypathetic to Anderson, yet nudity was present in every episode, from the couple’s intimate scenes, parts of the sex tapes, to Anderson giving birth to her first son. Utilizing nudity to tell a story of a woman that is still dealing with the consequences of her intimate moment being shared online is not ideal. There is time for artistic nudity, but recreating parts of the tape that people might still have access to was senseless. There was no consent from the couple back in 1995 when the tape was stolen and published, and neither party consented to the creation of the show this time, either.

James reached out to Anderson to hopefully have her involved prior to production and during filming, but never received a call back. Sources close to Anderson have said that the actress has no intention of watching the show now or in the future, and that she has avoided watching the trailer or seeing pictures of the characters.

It is an understandable reaction, considering Anderson is still dealing with the consequences of the spread of her sex tape. Lee was seen as the “cool guy” for being intimate with Anderson, while she lost the rights to her own body simply because she had already posed for Playboy and she was playing a “sexy” character in “Baywatch.” The most heartbreaking moment of the show is when Anderson realizes that she is losing job

Tommy Lee

○ B. October 3, 1962 in Athens, Greece.

○ His real name is Thomas Lee Bass.

○ Founding member and drummer of the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe

○ He was in a marching band in high school.

○ Even though his band was popular in the 1980s and part of the 90s, his marriages to Heather Locklear and Pamela Anderson is what made Lee a household name.

○ Spent months in jail in 1998 after Anderson accused him of hitting her in front of their children.

○ They divorced while he was in prison but reconciled just to break up again later.

○ He had a reality TV in 2005 called Tommy Goes to College, where he documented his journey as a student at the University of Nebraska for a few weeks.

○ He is also an advocate of animal rights.

○ He has 50+ tattoos.

○ Lee and his son Brandon got into a physical fight in 2018, leaving the drummer with a swolen lip.

○ Currently married to ex-Vine star Brittany Furlan since 2019.

opportunities because she is solely seen for her body. Societal double standards are very clear throughout the episodes, while Lee is making jokes about his penis size with people at a bar, a pregnant Anderson auditions for roles that she would not get as a result of the leaked tape.

It is gratifying to see social media defending Anderson decades after the occurrence; as painful as the past being brought up years later is, the show created conversations regarding pornography, sex tapes, and double standards online. TikTok accounts shared content about Anderson and Lee in a respectful manner, explaining to a younger audience the facts about the ex-couple and their lives, before and after the leak of their tape.

TikTok commentator @hellotefi made a very informative thirteenpart video where she went down the timeline of Anderson and Lee’s relationship. Sympathetic towards the actress, Tefi defended Anderson and explained the turbulent life she had with Lee back in the mid-1990s, and even added in what their relationship is today. However, one of her followers did not like this series: ex-Vine star — and current wife of Tommy Lee — Brittany Furlan thought her personal life would not be invaded for being “mutuals online.” Furlan unfollowed Tefi claiming that the content creator’s “Perez Hilton vibes” upset her, and that some “facts” Tefi shared were untrue.

This TikTok drama exposed two sides of media consumerism. Tefi, as a commentator, shared her sympathy to Anderson’s pain and explained what a toxic relationship looks like, while mainly focusing on facts through the actress’ point of view. On the other hand, Furlan, the follower who defended her husband (and herself for that matter) claimed that she did not understand why a mutual follower would talk about the past. However, Furlan followed @hellotefi, who regularly posted celebrity gossip, and had no issue with the content until she was involved (her name was never mentioned, though she was referred as “his current wife” once), revealing a hypocrisy on her part. The Vine star chose to ignore the message of Tefi’s series, which was how little voice Anderson had throughout her career, and how a toxic relationship can become an addictive cycle that could be hard to break.

After refusing to be involved with the Hulu series, Anderson signed with Netflix to work on a documentary of her own. Directed by Ryan White and co-produced by her son Brandon Thomas Lee, the news was shared by the actress on her Instagram account with a note with Netflix’s logo, claiming that she’s “not a victim, but a survivor & alive to tell the real story.”

This is her time. She deserves a spotlight to tell her story, without the sexualization and dramatization of her traumas. In an era of the #MeToo movement, where women are supporting other women more than ever, and where the media is beginning to raise awareness about the double standards and misogyny of Hollywood, Anderson finally has the opportunity to share her version.

We owe her this moment, but most importantly, we owe her an apology for how we, as media consumers, have treated her in the past.

From Top: Pamela Anderson on the set of Baywatch in 1995. Lily James inpersonating Anderson, 2021. Tommy Lee in the 1990s. Sebastian Stan as Lee, 2021.

The Tabloids Cancel Culture Shaped

The 2000s were the tabloid decade and the blog empire. They decided what was wild enough to be talked about, as well as who deserved what kind of spotlight. Even before canceling someone was a culture practiced by ordinary people, we were calling out bad behaviors when these tabloids would not.

Twitter, and recently TikTok, have become well-known spaces for cancel culture to wreak havoc, especially towards celebrities. It has become fairly common for Internet-famous people to become a topic of conversation after controversial news is shared online. We, as consumers of media entertainment, grasped from the tabloid empire from the 2000s that you can judge a celebrity if they allow us to learn about their lives. The word “canceling” has only been used commonly within the past six years, even though celebrities have faced criticism for their actions long before that. One of the earliest instances where a celebrity was canceled was when Chris Brown faced domestic abuse charges against his then-girlfriend Rihanna. Consequently, people avoided his music to show their support for

That

Rihanna and raise awareness for survivors of domestic violence.

Tabloids were the ones drawing attention to this at the time, but it was heavily downplayed, focusing on gossip that were most of the time biased and coming from a personal opinion rather than sources.

Let’s look at Justin Timberlake. He would have been canceled in the early 2000s if the actions of men bore any true consequences back then. The controversial 2004 Super Bowl halftime show’s “wardrobe malfunction” — which revealed Janet Jackson’s breasts — resulted in praise for Timberlake instead of a callout. Instead of apologizing — because the accident was caused by his hands pulling on more fabric than necessary — he told Access Hollywood, “Hey, man, we love giving y’all something to talk about.” What could have passed as an accident became a career turning point for Janet Jackson, whose life never fully recovered after the incident, while Timberlake remained in the limelight unscathed. This incident that would have resulted in his being canceled today was applauded by the media back in 2004.

Instead, tabloids mostly focused on tearing down female celebrities while praising male artists for similar behaviors. Timberlake once violently attacked a paparazzi alongside Cameron Diaz, his then-girlfriend, in “selfdefense” after the cameramen jumped out of the bushes. This incident failed to make waves, yet the infamous Britney Spears umbrella attack in 2007 was widely shared in the tabloids, as well as pictures of her shaved head before this incident. This stalking from the paparazzis became a turning point for her public and private life; her mental health gained popularity as a topic for tabloids who used her “meltdown” to sell their magazines and gain clicks.

She was branded a freak. Justin Timberlake, for revealing Janet Jackson’s breasts on live TV, was hailed as a hero.

Tabloids and gossip

blogs such as TMZ and Just Jared were responsible for these kinds of headlines. Their audiences consisted of men that would not consider what they were reading “gossip,” since the content mostly just

sexualized and degraded women. TMZ also specialized in publishing invasive celebrity videos — which were later posted on the newlylaunched YouTube — giving fans the sensation of peering into a small part of the celebrity’s life.

The difference in treatment between male and female celebrities, as well as the sensational headlines tabloids and bloggers would employ for clicks and money was widely popular amongst readers and not condemned during this empire. A little over a decade later, these same people are being harshly criticized for their actions. While they have now transitioned to creating social media content and have since adopted a straightforward delivery style that does not offend anyone, the #MeToo movement and, more recently, the Framing Britney Spears documentary, have shaped them in a new light. Screenshots of old articles have resurfaced, showing the full extent of the toxicity of 2000s tabloids and how harmful their content was to those targeted.

Perez Hilton, a notorious blogger from this empire, used his signature white scrawl that appeared over pictures to usually degrade celebrities he’d share rumors about. It was a type of humor that was considered entertaining by many back in the day, with his blog achieving over 8.82 million pageviews a day — majority women — where he attacked celebrities to gain clicks without fear. He helped shape people’s usually negative views of celebrities like Spears, criticizing her parenting often, or claiming the singer was addicted to drugs. He has since lost traffic on his dedicated website, and transitioned to social media, and his posts now consist of not-so-sensationalist leads with only traces of his trademark still present. Hilton has since apologized for the way he had treated celebrities in the late 2000s. Is he actually sorry

Justin Timberlake attacking paparazzis while out with his then-girlfriend Cameron Diaz, circa 2004. Source: CNN

“As the site grew in popularity, it served as confirmation bias, that there was an appetite out there for this kind of content, and I wanted to keep deliveringit.”

- Britney Spears for GQ about her 1999 Rolling Stones cover at the age of 17

did this apology come and other bloggers like Gossip are now being canceled?

Hilton’s career has not recovered, even though he still has an online presence. Similarly, Elaine Liu from Lainey

of increased accessibility to the Internet as well as the popularity of blogs, which created an easy approach to gossip about celebrities. What gave tabloids the power they held was their manipulative headlines and harsh criticism. Celebrities were either afraid of them or took advantage of this culture to rise to stardom. One off-guard moment and they’d be on websites and

of taking advantage of “apology culture” to clear her name. Liu has been accused of racism and homophobia for past headlines due to comments she’s made about Black female celebrities, as well as the children of celebrities.

blogger admits using those tactics to grow her site in 2003 and 2004, claiming that misogynist and slut shaming were popular among readers. Lui said, “As the site grew in popularity, it served as confirmation bias, that there was an appetite out there for this kind of content and I wanted to keep delivering it.” She believes that she has grown from her past mistakes and learned, “along with many of you who have learned and grown.”

In a now deleted post from January of 2005, for example, Lui comments on Sundance Film Festival appearances, she comments how Pamela Anderson was able to “stop f*cking” her manager “long enough to catch a flight” to attend the festival. Lui also commented on Anderson’s “fake tits looking like a frightful mess this morning,” and that was just one of the misogynist words used to describe female celebrities that attended the same event.

The tabloid craze of the 2000s was a result

On September 6, 2009, the tweet “#uknowurblackwhen u cancel plans when its raining ‘’ started getting noticed online. A simple hashtag caught many young Black users who shared their own experience, as well as getting funny and creative for the likes of the platform. What was not expected at the time was to have this hashtag go viral. Within the first two hours, it spread over Twitter so quickly that 1.2% of all Twitter traffic revolved around it as Black users responded with their own stories. The author of this tweet, Ashley Weatherspoon — who worked as personal assistant and social media strategy for celebrities like Adrienne Bailon (Cheetah Girls) — was simply testing out hashtags. At the time, this new gadget was a fun way to share stories and experiences under the same thread.

This viral episodecan be considered the start of Black Twitter.

More than a decade later, Black Twitter has become a trendsetter, capable of creating and shaping popular culture and memes, as well as being the portal for social justice causes like the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements. Canceling someone was just another conversation within this community that then spread out and became something bigger until it got out of hand.

Weatherspoon’s presence grew on the platform, reaching over 18.4 thousand followers, following which she founded “Dear Young Queen,” a blog where she encourages women to find their voices and passions. A queen herself, her profile photo on Twitter is her wearing a crown, and her very first viral tweet with the #uknowurblackwhen pinned at the top of her tweets.

“Canceling”

The term “cancel culture” has been used on online platforms as a way to call out people, especially celebrities, that have been “problematic.” Putting this word in quotes is important because

there are no guidelines to define it. People find any excuse to cancel someone nowadays, endangering that person’s career and putting them on the same level as those who actually deserve to be called out. The vocabulary comes from Black culture. Around 1980 when Chic member Nile Rodgers went on a date at a club, his date attempted to use his celebrity status to push people around; this was a dealbreaker for the guitarist, who stopped seeing the woman after the incident. One night after the fact Rodgers decided to sit down and write some music, coming up with lyrics that would be part of a song for the band’s new album Take It Off from 1981.

“Your Love is Cancelled”

… Watching the late show

I made up my mind, oh

A love that is free like a love should be

Fallin’ behind, oh

Don’t you see you are the one

I couldn’t have begun

No, Your love is cancelled

…

This was the first time the word “cancel” was repurposed for the idea of calling out a person for unacceptable behaviors. The song did not chart, and was concealed by the band’s many triumphant songs later in their career as well as their disco music like Le Freak and Good Times

The song, however, inspired screenwriter Barry Michael Cooper, who was writing a new gangster movie in the late 1980s. When New Jack City was released in 1991, the vocabulary was used as a way to get rid of someone, calling out an unacceptable behavior. Nino Brown, a narcissist drug boss finds himself being reprimanded by his girlfriend. He then grabs her head, throws her on a conference table and pours champagne on her. “Cancel that

b*&$@, I’ll buy a new one.” says the gangster, as a way of breaking up with the girl.

At the time, while the concept was barely used in pop culture, it was occasionally utilized by the Black community that had watched the movie. The word was also used by rappers in the 2000s, like when Lil Wayne references the movie in his 2010 song I’m Single by saying “Yeah, I’m single / n***a had to cancel that bitch like Nino.”

As years went by and social media grew in popularity, it was easier than ever to comment on TV and entertainment with friends and followers who shared similar interests. That was the case with a 2014 episode of Love & Hip Hop, New York, when music producer Cisco Rosado tells his girlfriend Diamond Strawberry “Get away from me, you’re canceled,” without any context. The scene was funny enough that it blew up on Black Twitter. Later, the music producer revealed that he had watched New Jack City the night before the scene aired, giving him the inspiration to use the terminology in the heat of the moment.

As this moment was unexpected, people loved the expression enough to start talking about it online. Black Twitter used “cancel” as an attempt to keep anyone or anything at arm’s length. The meaning was evolving, but it was still a personal decision, a way with which to say they didn’t like something anymore — like changing the channel after watching a show because it was boring. It gave them some power to control the narrative of their

multiple reasons. They start trends that are utilized by the rest of us in our daily online presence, and trend that they created is being voice they had online, the expression has now taken

transformed into a concept that gives ordinary people

power to call out irresponsible acts while possibly harming innocent people. The nonBlack community took a hold of this new, funny idea of canceling someone you don’t agree with, taking it as far as ending one’s career, removing the cultural aspect of the term.

Around the same time, another social media was exploding amongst young people: Vine.

On June 21, 2014, a trend was born out of a seat of a car in South Chicago. “We in this bitch. Finna get crunk. Eyebrows on fleek. Da fuq,” said Kayla Newman, better known as Peaches Monroee, on social media. A simple six second video of this young woman admiring her eyebrows, wearing her glasses and a headband filled with a flower pattern while in the car got over 50 million loops (replays) on Vine, as well as millions of views once uploaded on YouTube. This was the beginning of a trend that was “Eyebrows on Fleek.”

This new vocabulary entered people’s daily lives immediately, trending on social media as a hashtag, and ascending to almost becoming an officialized language in people’s dictionaries. Brands started employing this term in their advertisements, in hopes of reaching a young audience, while also making profits out of this trend. The creator of eyebrows on fleek, however, never got anything in exchange for something she started. Newman was left in the background, while mainstream media grew richer from a trend invented by a Black creator.

Content-sharing among black users has been the start of popular trends online. Vine, for example, only allowed short videos to be made, requiring creators to be as creative as possible. Its majority of trends were also created by the black community of the app, yet the company did not help promote their content on the main page like Tiktok has been doing nowadays. By the time Vine died in 2016, many of its creators were forgotten, and only a select few stars transcended after the app was purchased by Twitter.

Even the ex-Vine stars that were able to continue their careers post-app were not able to avoid canceling due to their content. King Bach, a

Black Canadian-American comedian who reached over 19 million followers and became the mostfollowed person on Vine. His content was based on a cartoon version of himself; an exaggerated and loud person, which years later Black Twitter started to call him out for further stereotyping the Black community.

Periodically, people started to revisit his content and notice the problematic emblem of his content. King Bach has been accused of further developing a negative Black stereotype, like the absent father and robbery sketches. One video from June of 2015 captioned “When you get robbed and bae still owes you money, he is seen acting alongside another Vine star Amanda Cerny, who acts as his girlfriend when a robber approaches them. After a zoom into Cerny’s face, it cuts to King Bach sitting on the robber’s shoulders demanding money that she “owed” him. While some saw this and many other robbery sketches as comedy, others saw similarities to the stereotyped the Black community suffers from. The “cancellation” was well talked about in 2020, when people had more free time revisiting the past due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and his name even appeared in the trending topics of Twitter due to the debate of the ethics behind his content.

While this was happening, another platform was growing expeditiously. TikTok was filled with sketches about being bored in the house, quarantine dogs watching people through the windows, and countless dance videos that changed dancing on social media. Influencers would copy the (sometimes) easy movements that did not require much movement around the space through the use of popular music. Even the music industry changed because of this social media — many artists like Jason Derulo focused on a younger audience and catchy melody for the app, realizing the new strategy of making songs go viral. White influencers — like the (now) second most followed Charli D’Amelio and fourth most-followed Addison Rae — would recreate popular dances and receive millions of views, bumping them into several “for you” pages.

However, similarly to Vine, most of the trends that we see on the app were created by Black content creators, but this time, these influencers demanded being credited when used because of how easy it is to steal content on TikTok. While they created awesome choreographies and continued underpromoted on the app, white influencers would be the ones rewarded with views and

Addison Rae at The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon dancing to TikTok trends on March of 2021.

The original dance creators appeared on The Tonight Show to talk about choreographing those dances on April, 2021.

recognition.

In March of 2021, Jimmy Fallon invited Addison Rae to dance on The Tonight Show. The popular dances at the time included Cardi B’s Up, Popp Hunna’s Corvette Corvette, and Megan Thee Stallion’s Savage. The controversy behind this “challenge” from The Tonight Show was that a white TikToker was dancing to choreographies invented by Black creators, and no credits were given to the inventors on the show. These smaller POC accounts like Keara Wilson, the Savage dance creator, would only be known by the credits people of the app leave as a way to indicate the original influencer to create the trend.

Since Rae appeared in the show last year, Fallon and The Tonight Show have invited the original creators of the dances to the show as a group interview. Mya Nicole Johnson and Chris Coffer (Up dance), Dorien Scott (Corvette Corvette), Fly Boy Fu (Laffy Taffy remix artist), Indii (Laffy Taffy remix dance) and Keara Wilson (Savage) appeared on the show to talk about the viral dances and perform them live. Even though they were given space and recognition for their work and creativity, they each only had about two minutes to be introduced to the audience, while Rae had a segment on the show for herself. Credits where it’s due, Fallon and his team immediately addressed the controversy and even though it was short, they gave these influencers a place to show their content and receive the recognition they deserve.

Cancel Culture

This way, the media has been called out for the lack of attention given to Black creators on several platforms for over a decade. The idea of “call-outs” as cancellation took off around 2015 and 2016, but the concept was not. Calling out a celebrity for their actions was a thing for a decade, and artists like Justin Timberlake and Chris Brown have been boycotted due to their problematic behavior prior to the cancellation era.

However, it has become a lifestyle for Twitter users. If a certain person does something that one does not agree with, they are immediately canceled. If they have a different political view, they are also canceled. If they tweeted something inappropriate when they were twelve, they would be canceled.

There are, however, movements like #MeToo which called out the abusers and sexual assaults from within the entertainment industry, as well as other workspaces and life in general, bringing awareness to the long-term effects of crimes against these victims.

When studying media, there is a crucial point to be evaluated: how the public participates in the media. In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962), Jürgen Habesmas explains the concept of Public Sphere as a “virtual or imaginary community which does not necessarily exist in any identifiable space,” being “made up of private people gathered together as a public and articulating the needs of society with the state.” It has been 60 years since the concept was created and yet it is as relevant today as it was back then. Social media is a public sphere where people hide behind their screens, giving them the confidence to comment about anything and anyone without the fear of the consequences. It is considered freedom of speech, giving everyone the right to express their opinions, but that also means that it is easy to steal an idea and pose it as original content, or replicate a Tweet as yours and not give credit where it is due. That way, Black Twitter’s content started to be transferred into the general public of the social media and appropriated as everyone’s culture.

In 2010, as Youtube started growing as a platform for people to make content, a 23-year-old woman with big blue eyes posted a video titled How to trick people into thinking you’re good looking. In this less than three minute video, the woman makes fun of beauty standards by explaining how she had self-tanned and put contacts on to look more beautiful. With a sarcastic tone, she gives step-by-step tips on how to look good through that year’s beauty trends: black eye makeup with bright pink lipstick, straight bleached blond hair and fake eyelashes.

This video goes viral on the platform, putting Jenna Marbles into the spotlight and gaining followers that helped jumpstart her career on YouTube. A decade later, on June 15, 2020, Marbles uploaded her last video onto her channel. With about 20 million subscribers, she had decided to leave the platform after over ten years of using it, by explaining her past mistakes in a 11-minute

video titled A Message. The video has Marbles in a comfortable setting, in her living room wearing a blue sweater and wearing no makeup, with her hair up in a bun, talking about her decision to abandon her channel. She apologizes for several past videos — that are now private — taking herself accountable for contents that might have upset people when they first came out.

Marbles uses her 2011 video where she characterizes as Nicki Minaj, wearing blackface and a pink wig, imitating the rapper as an example. Even though this and several other old posts of her channel were private for a few years prior to uploading the “goodbye” video, she apologizes for offending people and that even though she had no intention of causing pain, it does not reflect her beliefs anymore, therefore taking it off her page.

Ten years is a long time for a person to change, and Marbles grew older in front of the cameras, so has her beliefs, as she chose to private them as a way to avoid offending any more people. Even then, in the era of cancel culture, people had asked her to comment and apologize for her past mistake, some going as far as canceling the former YouTuber.

Despite apologizing, Marbles had made up her mind. Her departure took the online world by surprise, causing her name to go on the trending topics on Twitter. There were supportive people, understanding how tiring it is to make content for over a decade, and those criticizing cancel culture for pushing her out of YouTube.

Marbles’ biggest critics were coming from

a place of privilege, who were surfing the wave of cancel culture and trying to take someone accountable for their mistakes. There were also various Black influencers that jumped into this news and denounced White twitter for forcing one of the biggest YouTubers out of her platform for something Marbles has apologized for in the past.

YouTuber Pearl Swirl, who usually created reacting videos, commented on Marbles’ video while putting her makeup on. She started by saying that Marbles was an iconic figure on the platform and that she was never supposed to leave YouTube, claiming she expected to see Marbles’ funeral live from the influencer’s channel. Another comment on Twitter from @SkyWilliams says that “we need to CELEBRATE REFORM AND CHANGE instead of condemning the past.”

What upset people the most about her leaving was the fact that she had always recognized her mistakes and continuously apologized for it. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic keeping people inside their homes for a long amount of time, it was easy for an audience to go back to old videos and remind social media of past comments that should be taken accountable for. Marbles left YouTube while other content creators that have ongoing issues of homophobia, sexism, and racism are still utilizing the platform even after being called out and canceled — think Shane Dawson, who has made comments about pedophilia and has done blackface in past videos. He disappeared from social media in 2020 after being canceled just to come back as if nothing happened.

Twitter as Career Tool

Social media now has the ability to manage a career, therefore the idea that having celebrities on Twitter gave us the sensation of being close to our favorite artists in the early 2010s does not exist anymore. They have an image to protect, and one wrong tweet can end their careers nowadays.

Chrissy Teigen, for example, went from being a Twitter queen to being canceled. The model, TV host, and wife of singer John Legend grew in popularity on the platform for being “just like us:” funny, candid, with uncensored humor. Some of

her jokes came at the expense of other figures, but it was acceptable when her rude tweets were aimed at the ex-President Donald Trump. Her comments were so popular that Trump went on a Twitter rampage before blocking her on the platform. It was amusing for her followers because it was aimed at someone that was widely despised, but things quickly turned for the worst.

In 2021, Courtney Stodden, who got fame at the age of sixteen when they married 51-year-old actor Doug Hutchinson in 2011, came out with their side of the story about their marriage. Stodden claims they had been abused and taken advantage of by their now-ex-husband due to their young age at the time. This was also when Twitter had gotten big, making them an easy target for jokes and comments that were often impolite. Chrissy Teigen was one of their offenders, who tweeted mean words to the child bride.

Old tweets resurfaced immediately, proving how rude the then-26-year-old model had been to a child. Teigen apologized on the platform, claiming that she was “an insecure, attention seeking troll,” and that even though she’s embarrassed by her actions, “nothing compared to how [she] made Courtney feel.” She also claimed to have tried to connect with Stodden in private, but since this had gotten public attention, she saw the need to openly apologize as well.

Except Teigen still had Stodden blocked on Twitter, which proof was shared on their Instagram page. They claim to forgive Teigen, but that they never heard from her in private. As a result, Teigen lost brand deals, as well as having her products taken out of stores as a way to disassociate them

from her after the scandal — the famous boycott from companies in order to save themselves.

This shows how Twitter and entertainment changed over the decade. Being rudely funny was accepted and once a good way to rise to fame on the platform. However, with cancel culture being present on social media, the past and the present of users are being taken for granted, causing their careers to take the impact from their mistakes or being rightfully called out for hurtful comments. Calling out a celebrity - or anyone — for their mistake came out to become a culture. Canceling someone is giving power that only tabloids and news platforms had for years to ordinary people on social media. What started as a joke in the Black community was spread and misappropriated by the rest of the Internet, becoming a commodity. Celebrities who already had to be careful with their image in real life are needing to be strategic with what they comment as well. There is a difference between calling someone out for their action and possibly letting them redeem themselves by learning to become a better version of themselves and canceling someone for a mistake that could have been harmless and “ending” their careers immediately. On the other hand, it becomes difficult to draw a line between what is a harmless mistake and what deserves to end careers. Does Chrissy Teigan deserve a second chance? Has she learned from a mistake from ten years ago? It is difficult to tell, as she has been “canceled” for over a year now but she still has a large following on Twitter who believes in her change.