The Deadly Side (For Real) of Twitter
Twitter won't just give you a black eye; as Flavia Maria Boricea found out, Twitter also kills. The Romanian teen was way, way too addicted to the microblogging service. Not only was she using it in the bath, she ran down her laptop battery doing so, and then tried to plug the thing into the wall. Reports the Croatian Times: Flavia's mother... said her daughter had tried to plug the power into the socket with wet hands after the battery had died as she used the device for a lengthy period in her home in Brasov, central Romania... Her only injury was a burn mark on her hand. The lesson, of course, is to always dry your hands before connecting your electrical Twitter device to a power source and bringing it into a tub of water. (Pic via ebertek on Flickr) MORE >>
Where Is—And Was—Michael Jackson's Doctor?
When Jermaine Jackson made a statement on his brother's death last night, he noted that Michael Jackson's family physician was with him when he collapsed. But who is he? And where's that doctor now? The world is looking for him. The doc, originally identified as Dr. Tohme Tohme, is being "hunted by cops" who want to talk to him about a supposed Demerol injection that led to MJ's death, according to The Sun: LAPD are said to be examining a BMW which was towed yesterday from the singer's home where they also seized bags of prescription drugs. It is believed the missing doctor gave the star a dose of Demerol - a painkiller similar to morphine - before he suffered a cardiac arrest. The paper says that MJ may have become addicted to painkillers while preparing for his upcoming world tour. Brian Oxman, the Jackson family lawyer, is telling anyone who'll listen that MJ never should have been prescribed powerful drugs. But! The New York Post managed to track down Dr. Tohme (before the cops, apparently), and he says he wasn't there at all! "It's not me. I wasn't there at the house when this took place," said Dr. Tohme Tohme, who described himself as Jackson's manager and was present at a press conference where Jermaine Jackson formally announced his brother's death yesterday... He said reports that Jackson was using prescription drugs were inaccurate and blasted claims by a Jackson family lawyer, Brian Oxman, that Jackson had been surrounded by disreputable people before his death, as untrue. And now! TMZ ID's a different doctor as the one who was there with Michael: KHOU in Houston reports the man is Dr. Conrad Robert Murray, who had been living with Jackson in his rented mansion. We're told Murray attempted to revive Michael until paramedics showed up at the scene. They say that a car registered to Murray's sister was towed from MJ's house last night, and that cops are looking for Murray to question—which would presumably mean that Dr. Tohme is telling the truth. We'll keep you updated. [Pic: Getty] MORE >>
The Boy with the Yellow Rose Speaks
Harvey Kindlon, the 11-year-old Boy with the Yellow Rose from London, loves singing and acting. He also likes to meet celebrities! We spoke to the poised youngster over the phone to get his side of the crazy Megan Fox story. So how did you first hear that your picture was making the rounds on the internet? I was walking to school and some friends came up to me and said "Harvey, you're in the newspaper." And then it was on one of the morning chat shows and I thought to myself, "Wow, this could be really big." I can't believe there's a picture of me and Megan Fox. Why do you like Megan Fox? Are you a fan of her work, or is it a crush kind of thing? I just really love celebrities. And I'm basically a big fan of Megan Fox. I like her work. Tell us about what happened that night. We'd heard she was in London for the premiere, so we decided to head down there. I picked up the rose on the way. And when she came by and didn't take your flower, did you feel rejected? I felt rejected. But I couldn't really tell if she'd done it on purpose. There were so many cameras around. She was moving really fast. Afterwards we ran through the hotel, but she didn't stop. I dropped the rose on the ground and went home. Have you accepted her apology? I actually haven't heard anything that she's said. I see that you've met Kevin Jonas and Lady Gaga? I've met a lot of celebrities. Only a few take pictures. Some celebrities are complete [bad word that we won't reprint because he's 11-years-old and was nervous, folks]. Who do you want to meet next? I went after Katy Perry once, really wanted to meet her. We ran after her car. I wanted to give her a flower. Lady Gaga is going to be in London when I get back, so I'm going to try again with her. So do you want to go into the entertainment industry when you're done with school? I really love to sing and dance and act. I'm trying to get into a stage school in London, but it's really hard to get an audition. I bet you'll get an audition now, now that everyone knows who you are. I hope so. Anything else you want to tell us? I think I've told you pretty much everything! Harvey is in town until Monday with his mother and godmother. They're going to see the musical Shrek tomorrow night. For their part, Kodak, who orchestrated this whole whirlwind adventure, is giving $5,000 to both Kim the French Canadian and Collider.com who got Megan to make her apology. So, a happy ending mostly! If nothing else, a nice trip to New York for a kid with stars in his eyes. MORE >>
Our National Attention Span Reaching Crisis-Level Brevity
Farrah Fawcett, David Carradine, and Ed McMahon all just died. Oh, and Michael Jackson. Oh, and the Governor of South Carolina admitted to cheating on his wife. As did Senator John Ensign. And something about Iran? How can anyone keep up with so much of this news, all the time! Good thing there is this internet, that allows us all to multitask and keep up with so many things. Except that the internet just immediately stops caring about something as soon as something else happens, like a puppy. "#iranelection" finally made a comeback on Twitter's trending topics, but that's probably just out of guilt. Everything else is Jackson! (And "TGIF." Whoo, weekend!) This fuckin' week! On Monday, the disappearance of Mark Sanford was an amusing little "wacky news story," then it was a settled matter (he was hiking, his spokesman said, and that was good enough for the national press), and then it was a sex scandal, and then it was just done. The Daily Show didn't even do a full segment on his admission of an extramarital affair! Right now the death of someone named "Tippy Tom" is topping Google Trends. Who the fuck is that? Outside of him it's mostly Michael Jackson-related, plus naked pictures of the late Farrah Fawcett the murdered wife of wrestler Chris Benoit (stay classy, etc.). So, morbid and naked is the only way to grab a slice of attention from the masses. (Oh, christ, the guy who murdered the internet amateur porn model has been extradited.) But the marginally more respectable corners of the gossip/newsmedia will limit their round-the-clock coverage to Jackson, for the time being—Sorry, Iran! Sorry, health care and climate change! Lucky break, Mark Sanford and New York State Senators!—until something else shiny comes along. And the reason for this state of affairs is that we who are on the internet all damn day get sick of stories faster than consumers of traditional media, and latch on to whatever is new much faster, but for some reason the producers of traditional media are gunning solely for the attention of these ADHD consumers, and so they cover exclusively what is already being talked about exclusively by us, until something else happens and we all forget whatever we were on about two hours ago. It is depressing! But everyone in media is probably excited for the upcoming deaths of Robert Byrd and Walter Cronkite. It'll be much easier to stay on top of it: the packages are already in the can. MORE >>
The Youngs Will Destroy the Hills They Created
And you thought all teens and twentysomethings were shallow wastoids. Turns out they hate The Hills and other muck same as you. At least execs at MTV are hoping that's true, as they've just completely restructured based on that assumption. See, the youth network has been slipping some in the ratings the past two years, as generations shift and get older, and once-boffo programming like the aforementioned Hills start to get creaky and stale. Though head of programming Tony DiSanto, who's spearheading this overhaul, served as an executive producer on both The Hills and its predecessor Laguna Beach, he recognizes that tastes change pretty rapidly, and that the cinematic forgery of the Hills genre is losing all of its clout because kids know it's not, well, real: While most of that stems from the aging of such stalwarts as "The Hills" and the dearth of big new hits, some of the slippage can be attributed to the generational shift of MTV viewers, with the channel's brass focusing on the new teens and twentysomethings, "the millennials." DiSanto called them "the transparent generation" and said MTV's development is being altered to appeal to them. "They don't want to see a reality show that feels produced or is film-like," he said. "It's got to be real, authentic." He points to the recently premiered "16 and Pregnant" as an example of the type of unscripted fare that MTV is now after and touts it as one series that could fuel a turnaround. While we've not seen 16 and Pregnant, we assume it hews closer to the network's excellent True Life series (each installment of which is pitched and produced by independent production companies) than it does to, say, a show about rich pseudo-celebrities teetering around in expensive clothes, like The City. So, minor cultural boom over? Has the Hills era seen the last of its glory days? Let's hope so. You kids might be smarter than everyone thought. Well, if not smarter, at least fickle in the right ways. Lauren Conrad, you got out just in time. MORE >>
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