ausculture.com

This is masturbatory. A list of the top 25 web celebrities?

Then, a hasty imitation… this list is like an attempt to be hyper-masturbatory but is altogether less satisfying as it seems our protagonist is ultimately limp.

Our idea of celebrity has become perverted to the point that it’s no longer even pseudo-celebrity. It’s no longer even Paris Hilton the celebrity, it’s Perez Hilton the celebrity. It’s no longer even Steve Jobs the celebrity, it’s Fake Steve Jobs the celebrity. Indeed, we have rocketed so far outside the universe that we don’t even know what celebrity is, was, or could be.

Celebrity has long ago swallowed itself and we need to redefine what we mean by the term every time we use it. There is no archetype, only illusion.

The same goes for our news. Seemingly bored with the usual year in review like their 2006 year in review, news.com.au are instead running with a 2008 year in preview. This might be wholly unsatisfying if we were still under the illusion that news is anymore about anything other than gossip, mainstream pseudo-softcore porn, or retelling of news that never happened in order to tell ourselves that it did, in fact, not happen.

This is purely fantastic as we create celebrities and stories out of nothing, and then re-tell the same story again telling us that the first story was make-believe. The ultimate two-for-one deal. Or is that two-for-none deal?

Our news has entered hyperreality land and we have no idea when this happened or what it can still be compared to.

So, where to end this journey to nowhere? With the most authoritative of sources. Google.

Here’s the global most popular news searches for 2007 as descried by the Google Zeitgeist:

1. american idol
2. youtube
3. britney spears
4. 2007 cricket world cup
5. chris benoit
6. iphone
7. anna nicole smith
8. paris hilton
9. iran
10. vanessa hudgens

There’s a news story in that. And that. Ad infinitum.