Just a few weeks back I wrote a piece about celebrities and addiction.
Today I am writing about my own addiction.
I have become addicted to a certain celebrity gossip site which shall not be named. You know the one. It’s run by that ubiquitous, pudgy blogger famed for photo-shopping nasty drawings and observations over photos and generally being the snarkiest snark that ever snarked.
At first his cheery pink site seemed like such fun. I like to think I got on the bandwagon earlier than most people and as such I felt a certain amount of pride in having discovered him.
And as someone who works in the industry he lampoons, I took no small delight in seeing him mercifully expose certain celebrities as the horrible human beings we all know they can be.
But somewhere along the line the worm turned.
I’m not sure if the content of his site has gotten nastier over the last few months or if the same old nastiness, piled upon itself day after day has culminated in something that suddenly seems inexplicably dark and sad.
Maybe it's his refusal to stop making fun of the children of his celebrity targets, given my recent and sincerely heartfelt musings on bullying.
Maybe it’s his continuing potshots at Brittany Spears who appeared to spiral into a full-blown mental-health collapse right on his gleeful cue.
Maybe it’s my own shame at hypocritically bemoaning our culture’s crass obsession with celebrities, while still making the crassest self-promoter of them all rich with my guilty, surreptitious clicking.
At any rate I think I’ve hit rock bottom.
I’m not having fun anymore. I don’t feel good about my participation anymore. A pastime that once seemed harmless, if edgy and entertaining, now just seems skanky.
And while I don’t delude myself that it’s going to be easy, I’m ready to kick the habit. I’ve even decided to redirect my clicking to my favorite blogs, when the urge to surf the dark side becomes overwhelming.
Who’s with me?
