Perez Hilton
Leave a commentOctober 20, 2013 by The Blogmaster
Once dubbed “Hollywood’s most hated website,” Perezhilton.com is one of the most popular and financially successful blogs on the internet. Created and authored by blogger Mario Lavandeira in 2004, the blog covers celebrity news, and is famous for ‘outing’ closeted stars.
The blog’s enormous popularity and financial success depends on its controversial content and on the infamous persona of ‘Perez Hilton.’ Hilton is open about his homosexuality, and works from a desire to ‘out’ those he believes are closeted gay celebrities. Despite the mine of public opinion against it, the controversy surrounding this somewhat militant, and privacy-invading, approach is instrumental in attracting attention. His celebrity relationships, and his famous altercations with stars, promote the blog as he features on celebrity gossip sites, in magazines, and in many conversations. In fact, his latest fight with pop sensation Lady Gaga began with a blog post. Hilton critiqued Gaga’s new single, saying, as The Sydney Morning Herald states, that it was “unrelatable” and “a few steps backwards.” Gaga then accused Hilton of stalking her on Twitter. Needless so say, this incident has since been splashed over numerous blogs and news sites.
So what does Mr. Hilton teach us about getting online attention?
Clearly, it pays to have an extreme, unique, obnoxious, and in-your-face personality to receive a large following as a blogger online, even if people love to hate you. The ability to inflame passions through your content, whether it be a passionate love or hate, always means that your blog will be viewed by thousands of viewers. Or, in Perez Hilton’s case, millions of viewers. He is followed by 6 million people on Twitter, and apparently, on July 30, 2007, he claimed that Perezhilton.com received over 8.82 million page views in a 24 hour period. According to Alexa.com, the site is ranked 934 in relation to the most trafficked websites in the world.
Celebrity gossip is always going to spark the interest of online audiences. The cult of celebrity has reached an all time high. Hilton has capitalised on this celebrity obsession by catering to audiences fascinated by the missteps of celebrities everywhere. His huge following can also be attributed to the fact that he steps on celebrities’ right to privacy. Hilton is able to spark audience intrigue by advertising that he always has the first ‘inside scoop’ on peoples’ lives.
Whats so good about the design of the blog?
Although Perezhilton.com draws attention through it’s controversial gossip, the design and layout of the blog contributes to its large following. This is because it’s interesting and very user-friendly. The blog has cultivated it’s own online community of celebrity-obsessed followers; users are able to join the “Perez Posse” by signing up for an account.
Hilton includes animated, handwritten captions on many of the celebrity photos used in the celebrity blog posts. These often contribute to the sarcastic tone of each post, and are visually stimulating. The animated captions also connect Perez and his opinions directly to the celebrities he is talking about; this infers that he too, is intertwined in the Hollywood world, and that his opinions have due weight in it.
Curtesy of http://perezhilton.com
Gifs and animated images of celebrities adorn the blog feed, which makes it seem exciting and visually stimulating. Perezhilton.com is comprised by hundreds of links connecting to other parts of the site, which draws readers further into its content. Celebrity names appear in bold and pink font. This is another tool which is successful in sparking reader curiosity.
Perez, even though at times, you can be extremely annoying, we salute you. You have successfully built a blogging empire which towers over the millions of celebrity gossip sites online. Needless to say, we won’t be following you on Twitter.
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