by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
If I somehow magically came into a sizable chunk of money, I have the proper skill set to necessary to start a decent Website like the late, great Gawker. One thing I’m obsessed with is my Webstats. Something about seeing the origin of the few people who look at this site is very addictive. If I was running a major site like Gawker, I would be extremely obsessed with what, exactly, was popular on the site and how to make sure those things were written about as much as possible going forward.
One thing I’ve noticed is I spend a lot of time ranting about fascism coming to America and what gets the most engagement? My occasional post about celebrities. It makes you wonder what’s going on. One of the biggest mysteries about the world of celebrities is how much they interact with the online world. My guess is there is a spectrum. On one end there are celebrities who are very active online via burner accounts, etc and then on the other end there are celebrities too busy being, well, celebrities to care.
The only reason why I think a lot of celebrities might be active online via burner accounts is they’re extreme narcissists to begin with and why wouldn’t they want to know on a personal level what people are saying about them? It is interesting that many, many major stars are — at least on a superficial level — completely off social media. It’s for the best, of course, but it makes you wonder how they pull it off, especially the younger ones.
Of course, they may not pull it off. It’s possible that far fewer celebrities are completely off social media than you might think. The thing that is so frustrating, is there is definitely a marketplace for something like the old Gawker. And, yet, the obstacles are enormous.
You would have to have a huge amount (in real terms) of startup money. And, even then, the world of 2003-2004 when Gawker was launched is ancient history. I only look at three or four Websites on a regular basis these days, so to start a new celebrity-infotainment site like Gawker now is probably a bridge too far.
Anyway, why do rando losers like me even care about this kind of shit? I have a novel to work on.
