"Gossip Gone Toxic"

I was strolling through the web one day (earlier today), and followed a link posted on Twitter straight to 3am, the Daily Mirror's sub-site devoted entirely to the shit-and-glitter world of celebrity gossip. Needless to say, my delicate sensibilities were appalled, and after my manservant had brought me 'round with the aid of smelling salts, I decided to turn my pen to recording exactly what I thought. My blog has been languishing neglected ever since my paean to TheRoyalWedding, so I thought it time I showed it some lovin'.

I shan't be delving too deeply into the matter- Lord knows I daren't click on any of the strange stories with which I am presented- rather, this is simply my own simple, fleeting analysis of what appears immediately before visitors to the site. I went there, so you don't have to. Without further ado, we're going in.

Here's the top of the homepage:



Note the strange tabs entitled "Ooh...", "Gasp!", "Phwoar!" etc. This website won't bother telling you what exactly you're clicking on, preferring instead to suggest your responses to the material hidden within. Aside from being a rubbish way to signpost content, it introduces the whole affair as seeming very haphazard and aimless- that is to say, the visitor is essentially susceptible to whatever trite 3am wants to throw at them, in any way it chooses to do so. The site wants us to lean back and be shocked, derisive or, um, turned on, but shies away from granting us the opportunity to do this freely. But wait...there's a "Celebrity Finder A-Z"! So you can zoom straight in on what Ceryl Chole and the poorly trained actors on The Only Way Is Essex have been up to. 3am wants us to believe that we have a right to dissect the private lives of those it places in the public eye, yet it patronises us with its ridiculous subheadings. We have control, but not control.



Scroll down the page (past the MASSIVE PROMO OFFER) and you're met by the stories of the day. Nice big pictures, bigger, bolder headings- as with all newspapers and magazines, these are doing all the work. If you don't bother to read any of the stories (I didn't), you can just as easily cast your aspersions on the persons concerned, whether or not you have "the whole picture". In a way, the strangely labelled "Care? Read on" links suggest that you take this very approach. "No, I don't care," you say- but we've already been lured in by the big headers telling us that Dannii Minogue is woeful, strained, and that her sister wears silly dresses for her. 3am wants us to be misinformed about misinformed non-stories, because that's how you engender thoughtful and eloquent discussion. There's also a cheeky joke about a one-piece outfit (Teehee!) being an impractical faux pas. If 'Tulisa' is appearing on The X Fascist Factor, that means it's likely her clothes have been chosen for her, based on what the viewing public will respond to positively. But we don't get to laugh at the wardrobe people, just their victim. Again, the story within might say otherwise, but on the surface, that's not an issue. If you don't care, you don't read on. But you know Tulisa is silly. Meanwhile, Danni "apepars [sic] to be carrying a comfort blanket"- lazy, slapdash writing and/or subbing. You could almost believe that the heading "This is where we're meant to comment on Dannii's strained face" was a writing guideline mistakenly left unchanged. But the writers of 3am aren't that stupid. That is the kind of comment they're expected to make, but they're letting us in on a little secret by implying that they are too predictable. In context, however, it's not all that funny or ironic, due in part to the inclusion of "strained" (doesn't look all that strained to me, but 3am has already implanted the judgment), and to the self-referential absence- a comment isn't there, so it is imperative that one is made. Don't care, don't read on.

(Don't forget about Paris Hilton, though! And that sex tape that everyone keeps bringing up again! Poor Paris, it was eight years ago, and now it's out of hand/Silly Paris, if she didn't want it to recur then she shouldn't have done it [delete as appropriate])

And so, to the final section I can be bothered looking at right now:



More stories, directly below an ad for various high street brands with the tagline "Get the Celeb Look now! Steal their Style" (it belongs to us, remember). Below "the most misleading magazine cover of all time" (to be honest, I thought it was TIME magazine's 2006 Person Of The Year cover) story- I'm guessing Kim Kardashian is not having a baby- is the equally misleading "Cheryl Cole breaks silence yadayadayada", accompanied by a picture of Not Cheryl Cole and an explanatory subheading. Deception! Hypocrisy! Yeah, whatever. Just another reminder of our collective dwindling attention span. Here, the gossip press is ridiculing itself, then playing the same gag for cheap laughs or momentary interest-ceding-to-deflated-disinterest. But we've already forgotten about OK's misleading magazine cover, and we're scrolling down the page until we reach another story about Catherine "Kate" Middleton (there is one).

Don't care, don't read on.