Gawker: defamer, laguna beach

In The Virtual Laguna Beach, Every Middle-Aged Man Can Be A 17-Year-Old Blonde Who Looks Great In A Bikini

Mark — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 17:50:56 EDT

This week MTV launches Virtual Laguna Beach, its online community that will allow fans of the wildly popular "reality" series to meet up in an online paradise based on the confusingly semi-scripted world featured on the show. In a demonstration of what will surely become the site's most popular feature, MTV senior VP Matt Bostwick proudly showed the NY Times how easy it is for a middle-aged man to trade in his insufficiently alluring physical form for one more likely to attract the attention of bored, horny teenage boys:

The first step is designing your avatar — which can be made to look as much like or unlike your actual self as you wish. During a demonstration last week at MTV, Mr. Bostwick played the role of an avatar named Violet Jade whom he configured — scrolling through an extensive menu of eye shapes, hair colors, skin tones and so on — to look like a typical character on the show: blond, tan and scantily clad.

The community does seem to have built in at least a token safeguard against any casually predatory shenanigans, as these avatars can engage in nothing more first-basey than "Catholic school kissing [where] the lips touch, but the bodies don't" (Bostwick's words, not ours), forcing dedicated molesters unsatisfied by PG-13-rated online contact to lure their quarry from the virtual hot tub and into a more traditional, offline trap.

Not in the Real World Anymore [NY Times]

Short Ends: Angelina Jolie To Adopt Orphaned Landmines

Mark — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 19:52:08 EDT

· Angelina Jolie proposes an ambitious adopt-a-landmine program for Iraq. God, we hope she doesn't try to give one a mohawk. The resulting People spreads would be horrific.
· Jealous of Rupert Murdoch's recent MySpace acquisition, ultra laid-back Viacom execu-dude Tom Freston totally paid $49 million or whatever for iFilm, whenever he gets around to signing off on the paperwork. Get it? he's laid back, man.
· It's almost like Boy George never had a male hustler come over and try to rob him before. Hell-oooo! Amateur hour!
· Not content with revolutionizing the energy drink market, Steve Seagal turns his attention to saving the Delta blues.
· And just because it's Friday afternoon and you've been so well behaved all week, here's a possibly stale link to a nipple slip from a Laguna Beach cast member (NSFW). Don't say we never did nothin' for ya.

MTV's Long Fall From Pseudo-Grace

Mark — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 14:45:20 EDT

Having seen one too many $2000 My Super Sweet Sixteen party dress and Laguna Beach butt-floss bikini, The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke is finally ready to tune her television to MTV and chainsaw the fucker in half (kids, ask your parents!). In this week's column, Finke laments the network's—which, we hear, used to primarily present delightful mini-movies set to the most popular songs of the day—loss of semi-innocence; after all, what kind of basic cable channel can claim a rock-and-roll soul when it cynically underwrites some Hollywood do-gooding just because the host is a movie star who boffs Justin Timberlake?

[Viacom co-president Tom Freston] semi-apologized to the analysts for putting on shows like Cameron Diaz’s Trippin’, which he termed a “pro-environment show essentially.” Said Freston: “We knew it wasn’t going to be a big ratings success. But when we thought in terms of the pro-social part of things we do, and the image part of things we do, it made a lot of sense.” What he didn’t say was the truth: We only ran that show because this really hot celeb who dates Justin Timberlake hosted it. We all know the subtext: Ignore those do-gooder shows MTV throws up as a sop to our audience, and pay attention to our profits.

We still see an opportunity for continuing token attempts at MTV's occasional "pro-social" programming mission. Why not sign up Laguna Beach's breakout star Kristin for a second installment of Trippin'? She can, like, bring Happy Meals to the earthquake victims in Pakistanigascar and junk.

Deadline Hollywood: Who Hates Their MTV? [LA Weekly]

Short Ends: The LB Goes To The Prom

Mark — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 20:46:31 EDT

· Did Eddie Murphy's wife file for divorce because he's not enough fun? You know, the kind of fun that doesn't involve the tranny hookers.
· Our pals at TVGasm scored some pretty sweet pics of the Laguna Beach kids at their prom. We've fallen woefully behind on the second season, so we have no idea who the hoo-er in the yellow dress is.
· Our degenerate blog-brothers from Oddjack and Gridskipper got together to handicap various odds related to Tara Reid's hosting of Wild On Tara, like the 3/1 chance that drunken Americans in Pamplona successfully exhort the hostess to flash the Frankenboobs.
· LAist thinks it's discovered the best waiter in Los Angeles at a Chevy's in Glendale. More amazingly, it seems that this super-waiter has never been a cast member of the Real World/Road Rules Challenge.

Short Ends: That Nose

Mark — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 20:03:46 EDT

· The Cityrag blog finds itself obsessed with Owen "The Butterscotch Stallion" Wilson's trademark crooked nose and its representation in the media. It's nice to see someone concentrating on something other than his sex life, isn't it?
· Whether you want to listen to Howard Stern spank strippers on satellite radio or watch him do it on cable, you're going to have to pony up a subscription fee.
· "Hey, Gammaw, tell us again about the time you made out with Johnny Depp!"
· Gawker finally gets some answers about the enigma-wrapped-in-a-riddle that is Laguna Beach.
· We're pretty sure that they're called "spec scripts," um, not the thing that this writer calls them. But then again, we're not familiar with his work.