Gawker's 'Status Galley' Book Club: Nick Douglas' Twitter Wit Book Of Tweets
Publishers release "advance copies" for the Literary Elite to have before the masses/Oprah ruins them for you. Being spotted with one sometimes merits "status"...that we're about to ruin. Today's selection is TwitterWit, The Big Book of Collected Tweets! A quick reminder of what a Status Galley is, via Leon Neyfakh at the New York Observer: Basically the term refers to an advance reader's copy of a highly anticipated book that hasn't been published yet. If you have one it means you're special: either a proud member of the exclusive club known as the publishing industry, a distinguished literary critic, a friend of the author's, or in some cases even an intern at a cultural magazine. Today's book is Twitter Wit, edited by founding Valleywag editor and former Gawker writer Nick Douglas. Concept: It's a book of Tweets. Okay, actually, it's the first authorized collection of Tweets, to be unleashed on the literary community by HarperCollins on August 25, moved up from its September 8th release date. It claims to be an "Authorized Collection of the Funniest Tweets of All Time," right there on the cover, but not the first, because New York Times columnist David Pouge's book of Tweets, while not "official," comes out on Wednesday, August 12 (which probably explains HarperCollins moving up the release). Douglas' book has a forward by Twitter cofounder Biz Stone, and a swell introduction by Douglas, in which he explains that Twitter is "practically destined for...the witty one-liner." Concept Grade: C-. It's a book of Tweets, many of which were curated through a dedicated website. But there is longer-than-140-character insight from Biz Stone and the guy who put all of these together. So: that counts for something. Numbers: Douglas' book will retail for $12.99, while Pogue's book will sell for $12.95 (SNAP), but you can buy both from Amazon for, like, $20, ha. Douglas made the deal back in February for a rumored mid five-figures that I'd heard was at $64K. Douglas assured me over email that it was "a good deal less" than that. He continued: What I did get was very generous of Harper, especially since Twitter wasn't as completely media-dominant as it is now. It's been a very lucky summer for them, for me, and for the contributors who wrote this book over the course of two years. So they should've tossed Douglas more money for being on the Zeitgeist bandwagon, no? There are, at last count, 634 Tweets in the book, so you're paying about two cents a Tweet. Assuming Douglas' "good deal less" was, to be fair more than half the $64K number, but less than 3/4ths, let's say Douglas got $45K for the book. If that were the case, Douglas would've received $70.97 per Tweet. Not bad. Even at $40K, Douglas would've received $63.09 per Tweet. Plus the introduction, of course. Numbers Grade: C-. Despite being a relative bargain per Tweet, the economy still sucks! Also, they're Tweets, you can get these for free. But Douglas sure cashed in, legwork on the intro (which... MORE >>
Perez Hilton Will Not Apologize For Being An Awful Person
Perez Hilton got a fawning LA Times profile today. Instead of taking the opportunity to win fans back after recent publicity snafus, he used it as a platform to define his brand going forward: that of a professionally insufferable dick. You know what you're in for when "Perez Hilton is not sorry" opens up Robin Abcarian's piece on the creature formerly known as Mario Lavandeira, who's now a "tastemaker," according to the title of the piece. Other things you, the reader, are made aware of Hilton's complete lack of repentance for: posting the Dustin Lance Black pictures as a self-proclaimed gay icon, the early speculation on Michael Jackson faking his death, his altercation with Will.I.Am (though he notes he's still only not "entirely" unapologetic for using the word "faggot" in Hilton's fight with the Black Eyed Peas frontman). "I've built my brand on being a bitch," said the gay celebrity blogger. "So what?" Truth. His most recent offenses include shuffling over dead boxer Arturo Gatti's grave, and making a mockery of race relations in his Advocate profile when he applauded himself for using a gay slur as opposed to a racist one. The LAT's reporting still doesn't get to the root of who his third writer is (besides his sister) other than "a recent college graduate..he declined to name." "Why do you want to know that?" he said "It's all about me!" And the Hilton show it most definitely is. The good question is what Abcarian actually got, which amounts to pretty much nothing. And there's almost a pattern of kindness on the part of the L.A. Times to Hilton; their coverage of him doesn't extend past a Q & A that also lets Hilton flaunt his brand. The most significant thing the Times managed was Hilton's obvious insecurity and distaste for a gay community that couldn't care less about counting him amongst their numbers, while riffing on his Advocate cover story: He was furious about the Advocate piece, in which the writer was dismissive of his intellect. ("He's not a deep or nuanced thinker and seems generally unwilling . . . to look critically at himself. . . . He doesn't strike me as all that intellectually honest," wrote Benoit Denizet-Lewis.) "He basically called me stupid," said Hilton. "I am not stupid. I don't think I have to prove that to anyone." Or maybe it's just an insecurity about aptitude. There's no doubt that Hilton might be, if not deep or nuanced, at least an intuitive thinker into what some people want to read. But as he prepares to launch his "nicer" site, it'll be interesting to see what kind of person develops based on the success or failure of the new venture. An out-and-out failure might be an affirmation that his only asset is his willingness to forgo considerations of any stripe of moral fortitude, while a success might prove to Hilton that bigots can file down the lowest common denominator on their way to possibly less lowbrow ventures. Whatever the case is, it's almost relieving to see Hilton's one-dimensional nature... MORE >>
Oversharing Culture Breaking Point Broken By Anti-Overshare Society
Allen Salkin - the Seymour Hersh of the Styles section - files this weekend on a group of media writers in New York who're meeting in an Murray Hill (?!) penthouse. Old school, but the rub? No twittering, blogging, oversharing. Protocols, the group in question, was put together by Michael Malice, the Overheard In New York guy, whose "life story" was also chronicled by Harvey Pekar in a comic book. Some of the writers: noted Fingerbanging Expert Justin Rocket Silverman of the New York Post; Gawker Media 's Fleshbot Editor Lux Alptraum; Heeb's Jeff Newelt, a publicist/comic book artist; and illustrator/artist Molly Crabapple. No question, as far as media gatherings go, it's an impressively diverse group. Most of the time, when media people get together in New York, it's the same fifty people, at the same bar, and they're all talking shit on each other, or the shit they talked earlier in the week. Pathetically guilty as charged. Salkin, as he's wont to do, trots off a bunch of numbers about The Way We Live Now with Facebook, Twitter, texting, cell phones, clubs that won't allow you to take pictures of other parties, bars that don't allow you to document their goings-on, and various ways in which people in New York put themselves out there. He ends on a salient note: the documentarian behind We Live In Public - about this very trend, which features an appearance by none other than Julia Allison - at one point mugs to a camera in the doc: "I'm just a product ready to be harvested." His eventual fate? He moved to an upstate apple farm in 2001. According to his biography on the film's Web site, he is now running an entertainment network in Sidamo, Ethiopia. Impressive that Salkin - normally a slave to his stories - got this one right, even if he still has a lot to learn about Twitter (as evidenced by the screengrab above, ha). But it feels like he might've missed the larger picture: 1. The idea that a group of people getting together who aren't allowed to broadcast their whereabouts or ideas even makes the news. 2. The fact that Protocols - a conversation whose foundation is wrapped around the idea of not being broadcast - wasn't able to resist being profiled by the Sunday Styles. 3. That the urge to express ones-self in some way is - yeah, besides self-evident - possibly just the American Condition. Writers have been talking into the abyss for ages. Now, every away message, Tweet, and Facebook status puts people who wouldn't have ordinarily found themselves sharing inane sentiments on the same road as, say, Julia Allison, or any chronic over-sharer ever chronicled (or bylined) on this site. They might not be so far down said road as her, but anytime anybody talks into the vast expanse of the internet, they've expressed the desire to be heard by someone, anyone, anywhere. For better or worse, the repression (or restraint) that caused people to once stay silent in any number of ways is now a rarity. That same desire isn't so far, ironically, from what... MORE >>
TMZ Finally Given The Porn Parody Treatment
All good things come, ha, to ends. In pop culture, canonizations are routinely bestowed by porn. Meet the comedic genius that's TMSleaze, starring Ron Jeremy as Harvey Levin. Featuring Speidi, Jessica Simpson/Tony Romo, Amy Winehouse, American Idol, Eminem, and LaLohan. Obviously, you're about to embark into some mildly NSFW territory, though there's no actual "action" in these teaser clips, and the most vulgar thing about these are the language in them. The TMSleaze (website NSFW) tributes are, quite frankly, very well played, maybe with the exception of Tono Romo's jersey reading HOMO, but hey, that's porn for you. Maybe TMSleaze isn't Pulitzer-worthy, but this could at least be considered for a Peabody, or something. It's one of the more intelligent, current satires out there, and yes, it's a porn and mostly alludes to sex. But we should all feel upstaged: they took their position as a specific commodity on a moral battleground, and leveraged it into post-modernism. Well done. I'm not sure if the actors/creative team behind these clips are fully aware of the level of sharp satire they've embarked on: the porn industry calling TMZ sleazy is, whatever you think of the porn industry, an interesting statement. I await their parody of Gawker Media with baited breath. Do enjoy, and thank you Gawker Video Deity Richard Blakeley for the tip. In our first video, meet Messica Simpleton and Boney Homo. I think the TMSleaze reporters call them the Texas Poboys. There's also an allusion to Terrell Owens, who's not given a name. There's also fried chicken involved. In our second video, meet Lamey Swinehouse. She's drunk and bouncing a ball on the floor and screaming about fish and chips. The paporazzi decides to leave her to her own device, deciding that "this is just sad." Brilliant. In our third clip, meet Spender and Hiney, from "that show...that bullshit show," and as everyone knows "they've got a sex tape, or they're going to put out a sex tape" or something. They ask Spender and Hiney if they can take shots of them, and 'Spender' asks them if they're going to "be on the cover" (get it, they're not in print?). The photog says "sure," and they allow the TMSleaze photogs to take pictures of them. After letting them know that two other "characters" have made a sex tape - LC and Bony - Spender and Hiney decide that they need to make a sex tape, there and on the spot. Note TMSleaze's accurate depiction of Spencer Pratt's creepy flesh-colored beard. Brilliant. Kudos to the porn industry, for showing the rest of us how meta satire is truly executed with brilliant color. "Somewhere in America," shouts Ron Jeremy, "there's a really exciting story. But I doubt if anyone in this room's gonna find it!" This Joseph Campbell-esque insight leads to Slimin' - whose bad faux-British accent is reminiscent of Simon Cowell's - and a studio executive arguing. "Shut up you prattling little ninny, or I will retain your ass as a black man and and shine my Tony... MORE >>
Click here to safely unsubscribe now from "Gawker: Top Stories" or change your subscription or subscribe
| Your requested content delivery powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 9 Thoreau Way, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA. +1.978.776.9498 |
No comments:
Post a Comment