Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Am I Over Perez?

I think I might be. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to read his site because I think he breaks celeb news better and faster than anyone in Hollywood, but I think I'm over him.

This all kind of started back in June when I had to do a project that required me to go to a gifting suite at the MTV VMA's. This was the night I met Snoop Dogg, aka the greatest moment ever, so nothing that happened after that was going to bring me down. In any case, the last "celeb" to walk through was Perez. Now, at this point, I was a huge fan. I had referred sooo many people to his site, which I had been following since before it was perezhilton.com, when it was pagesixsixsix.com, and I just thought that they way he was making the blogosphere a credible way of getting news out there was admirable.

Anyways, he comes to our booth and I tell him that I really like his work, that I've been a follower, blah blah and how I also appreciate the South Florida references he throws in from time to time. To which he replies, oh, where in south florida are you from? and to which I say, boca raton and he says, in a suuuuuuuuuuuuper snotty voice, "that's not south florida."

First of all, I hate this. People say this all the time and its not true. The southern part of Palm Beach County is South Florida. The northern part is not, because some people have southern accents and I find that contradictory to what South Florida stands for - beaches, Cubans and people from Long Island and New Jersey in retirement.

Second, if I'm sitting here, complimenting you, letting you know that its because of people like me, that you are you, how are you going to turn around and act like a jerk? Anyways, I promptly cut our conversation off and handed him his product. Then me and my colleague went and got a martini and bitched that he was a bitch.

So, since then I've kind of cooled my adoration, but I was still a fan, but lately, Perez is putting up more news about himself than he does about celebs. I don't know, I get it, it's part of his gig, but seriously, I'm kind of getting tired of it. Maybe put up a media section, and remind people once a week that X, Y and Z mags have profiled you.

And...not that I'm saying like 20 posts a day, instead of 30-40 isn't good enough, but lately Perez has been slacking on the new news. When it was a slow gossip day, he'd put up funny photos or funny videos...now it's like his own merchandise or video of him on Geraldo at Large..and while I've heard Geraldo at Large is one of the fastest growing news magazines on air, I still dont' care. It's still Geraldo and quite frankly, I've read all the other pieces on Perez at this point, I don't think he's going to reveal anything Earth shattering. His story is pretty black-and-white, besides his whole mission of outing closeted celebs (another post entirely), he's a blogger who hit the big time. Pure and simple. Now let's get back to what made him so fun to begin with - his gossip about celebrities...not his own new brand of celebrity.

It's what I like to think of as the Oprah complex. Like Oprah, who is forever tooting her own horn on all the good works she does (and not that it takes away from the good works, I'm just saying she talks an awful lot about herself)...if Perez talks about himself, if Oprah talks about herself...is that why they are Perez and Oprah - because unless they are talking about it everyday, the chances of someone else doing so are slim to none? Is self-promotion the best kind? Should I be posting pictures of myself from my hospital opening in South Africa last year? Should I have posted the photo of me rescuing orphaned dogs and cats in Hurricane Katrina? Should I stop putting celebrities on the cover of my magazine and put my own face on there every month? Maybe so...

I'm headed off to Malawi for the holiday then, to adopt David Banda's little brother and sister, I'll make sure to have the news cameras not far behind. Stay tuned.

No comments: