The article titled “Blogs to Riches: Perez Hilton Migrates Into Cosmetics, Fashion and Music” was written by David Browne and appeared in Star Magazine November 18th of this year. This article describes a day in the life of Mario Lavanderia, whose alternative personality is Perez Hilton, as well as describes his background and his work. Personally, the title of the piece was what caught my attention. The phrase “Blogs to Riches” is a very catchy one and definitely describes the way that internet celebrities are created and sustained today. While Perez continues to work on his website that contains all of the celebrity gossip, he also has perpetuated his stardom by crossing over into more traditional forms of entertainment.
In our society today, the internet has made fame so accessible and created new celebrities, who otherwise would have gone unnoticed. The accessibility of the internet creates more celebrities and allows more people to become celebrities. These new celebrities demonstrate the change in the values of our society especially our obsession with instant gratification. Due to this instant gratification, the internet celebrities are often short lived in comparison to the traditional celebrities. However some internet celebrities are able to increase their fame through traditional forms of media. And this is exactly what Perez Hilton continues to do by involving himself in the fashion, cosmetic and music industries.
Do you think that Perez is going to become more of a celebrity? Why did his celebrity gossip site have such an impact on society that he has become such an influential celebrity? What does he demonstrate about our society today? What values do we find important in our celebrities today? How much do you think the internet has changed what a celebrity is? And how do you think it will change in the future?
3 Comments
December 10, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Perez Hilton is famous for being rude and writing uncensored blog posts about celebrities that are never complimentary. he is famous because he is outrageous, but i really would not even say that he is famous.
i think that he has become well known because he goes out with famous people and is photographed with them at clubs, but he really did nothing to deserve fame, he just has a well known gossip blog online.
it is true that without the internet perez hilton would be nothing, but i personally think that there is a different between an internet celebrity and a traditional hollywood celebrity. although in both cases there are certain people who do not deserve their fame, perez hilton will never be as well known as a movie actress, since the internet is still not completely linked the way TV and movies are.
December 11, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Im not sure if Perez Hilton will become more of a ‘celebrity’ more this but she will definitely become more famous and well-known. The way our society has changed from Web 2.0 is that people are becoming more well-known through posts and blogs online. This makes not only celebrities more famous but everyone else who is written about online. In our society many more people have become ‘celebrities’ from things they have accomplished or done online. This however is different from a real world celebrity in the sense that they are not even close to as rich and do not have as much of the real world fame as a typical celebrity. In the future, this trend of people becoming more well known because of the Web will continue and it should even increase because the Internet only continues to gain popularity.
December 11, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I hear a lot about this Perez Hilton guy, but surprisingly I have never actually seen what he looks like, or heard any of his material. All I know is that he talks about gossip I believe, and gossip seems to be what the entertainment of our society today. Think about how many of those gossip shows there are that are aired during some of the best times a television show can be aired, for example Extra and ET. I happen to find all of this pointless celebrity gossip stuff kind of boring. As far as the Internet goes, I definitely think it is affecting celebrities in a good or a bad way, it all depends on what the celebrity makes of it, or I should say the person that they hire, since they don’t actually do anything theirselves (most fo them that is).