WEBVTT 00:00.792 --> 00:09.781 [SPEAKER_01]: Being held to no one's like editorial standards, but his own, he could find a way to put this iconically venomous flare onto pretty much anything. 00:10.341 --> 00:12.723 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you'd have a picture of... 00:13.948 --> 00:25.335 [SPEAKER_01]: Katie Holmes and Surrey Cruz, and he'd be like, Katie Holmes is walking her like sentient little robot, Surrey Cruz down the streets, where is Tom? 00:25.355 --> 00:27.936 [SPEAKER_01]: Trying to craft a story out of, yeah. 00:28.016 --> 00:32.999 [SPEAKER_00]: And if I like no one was safe again, I got not even a child, truly no type of person was safe. 00:33.139 --> 00:35.440 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, he knew, we'll get into that. 00:35.501 --> 00:38.042 [SPEAKER_00]: And he was kind of, not Silver Tongue doesn't the right word. 00:38.422 --> 00:40.183 [SPEAKER_00]: He was, he was quick-witted. 00:40.363 --> 00:41.484 [SPEAKER_00]: Wait, what's the right word for this? 00:41.524 --> 00:42.945 [SPEAKER_00]: He was a good writer, like he could, 00:43.385 --> 00:44.286 [SPEAKER_00]: He was cutting. 00:44.786 --> 00:45.867 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you think this is bad? 00:46.088 --> 00:53.515 [SPEAKER_01]: Cutting, but reading back, a lot of it is, it's really not very sophisticated, really. 00:53.595 --> 00:55.837 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe my eight-year-old self was just impressed, you know. 00:56.288 --> 01:22.762 [SPEAKER_01]: Well yeah, I mean like it's snarky, it's snarky in a way that also if you're a child and you haven't actually met gay men but you've like been kind of fed this idea of like the bit you gay best friend I think like satisfies that because the only gay boys you know are in the closet this was like you know I think satisfying like a role that a lot of gay men were kind of forced into in the media but he was sort of taking on gleefully which is like sassy 01:25.310 --> 01:43.401 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there was basically like, there was nowhere for celebrities to hide, you could be caught taking out the trash and you might have that photo on his blog with like a Microsoft paint dick being painted over your head, you know, and he would take obviously the worst photo of the bunch to use. 01:44.297 --> 01:45.338 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, wait, sorry. 01:45.358 --> 01:46.538 [SPEAKER_01]: Where is he getting the images? 01:47.879 --> 01:52.982 [SPEAKER_00]: From my paparazzi, like, okay, so he doesn't have people that he's paying to go take photos. 01:53.002 --> 01:54.322 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, he's getting this from us. 01:54.362 --> 01:55.463 [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no. 01:55.703 --> 02:01.626 [SPEAKER_01]: But by having him used these images, it's incentivizing paparazzi, but he doesn't. 02:02.056 --> 02:02.817 [SPEAKER_00]: higher proper. 02:02.977 --> 02:03.758 [SPEAKER_01]: How does he make money? 02:04.218 --> 02:11.664 [SPEAKER_01]: When he launched a blog, Perez Holton was broke and he was operating out of a sunset boulevard coffee shop because he couldn't afford home internet. 02:12.705 --> 02:22.173 [SPEAKER_01]: Within three years though, his website was getting 7 to 10 million clicks a day and he was charging companies 9k for a single ad for a week. 02:23.473 --> 02:40.235 [SPEAKER_01]: So he's a true Cinderella story and for early internet like that's unthinkable amounts of money for like a self-starter Oh yeah more than that he received the kind of influence of the industry that most failed actors can only dream about 02:41.657 --> 02:48.640 [SPEAKER_01]: Stars like Amanda Bynes and Nicole Richie were apparently known to find him at this cafe so that they could pass third on to him. 02:48.660 --> 02:50.000 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, really? 02:50.100 --> 02:54.882 [SPEAKER_00]: Amanda, like, of course, because everyone are spewing with everybody. 02:55.082 --> 03:01.664 [SPEAKER_01]: And so obviously, you're going to go and tell the person who could use that information the most powerfully that information. 03:01.804 --> 03:02.965 [SPEAKER_00]: The girlies were really feuding. 03:02.985 --> 03:09.187 [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes when I'm going to bed, Amanda Bynes pops into my head, and then I have to really like try and not to think about her before I fall asleep, because again, I got too sad. 03:10.043 --> 03:10.643 [SPEAKER_01]: plus her. 03:11.224 --> 03:34.094 [SPEAKER_01]: He was also, we saw you getting TV appearances, and he was getting invited to parties, a Hollywood party's record labels with sent-in music for new artists, hoping he'd promote them, because he actually, I didn't realize this, is partially responsible for Lady Gaga's career, because he was championing her from really early on that you should be really good friends. 03:34.655 --> 03:35.135 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh. 03:35.975 --> 03:39.697 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, until she accused him of stalking her, basically, 03:40.117 --> 03:42.258 [SPEAKER_00]: Stephanie German oughta you will never be famous. 03:43.319 --> 03:44.040 [SPEAKER_01]: Ha ha ha. 03:44.260 --> 03:45.100 [SPEAKER_01]: Or is this diphania? 03:45.621 --> 03:46.401 [SPEAKER_00]: Stephania. 03:47.142 --> 03:47.442 [SPEAKER_01]: Stephania. 03:47.482 --> 03:47.962 [SPEAKER_01]: Stephania? 03:48.282 --> 03:49.063 [SPEAKER_01]: Is it stuffhania? 03:49.645 --> 03:51.547 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember now, I think it's stuff, and it was. 03:51.727 --> 04:01.018 [SPEAKER_01]: Adele, when she won her Grammy for 19, she hexed Perez Hilton to be like, I probably this wouldn't have happened without you because he brought her to America basically. 04:01.298 --> 04:03.701 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, he was extremely influential. 04:03.721 --> 04:10.409 [SPEAKER_01]: And so people, yeah, he was getting sent music from record labels because he could make your career basically. 04:10.969 --> 04:12.631 [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, that's crazy. 04:13.151 --> 04:24.460 [SPEAKER_01]: I remember being a tween and this was when she was still like mostly being played on like the Disney channel But I remember the first time he like I saw a post on him about Taylor Swift and I was like wow She's transcended like she's somebody. 04:24.680 --> 04:25.301 [SPEAKER_01]: That's crazy. 04:25.601 --> 04:38.572 [SPEAKER_01]: So, okay, this is like the mid-2000s Why do we think a gossip blogger like Perez would be finding so much success at this Particular time like what was going on in the culture? 04:39.610 --> 04:52.677 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, okay, Britney Spears was having that turn where she went from being considered the beautiful little virgin Southern girl to like white trash hick who like wears fiddards and flip-flops and can't speak properly. 04:52.757 --> 05:05.344 [SPEAKER_00]: Like it was just kind of the era where people looked at America as being like this trashy low culture uneducated place a lot due to like George Bush and his like many slippages of of language and his speeches, but like I think Britney Spears kind of took the hit 05:05.404 --> 05:09.107 [SPEAKER_00]: for that, like it was a time when the South like really came under scrutiny as being black. 05:09.167 --> 05:18.036 [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so Brittany's like in the media kind of showing a bit more of her like casual self, but also slowly having a bit of a breakdown, which culminated in the head shaving. 05:18.216 --> 05:26.143 [SPEAKER_01]: Talking about like rampant, paparazzi, stalking, Brittany was like getting the worst of that. 05:26.383 --> 05:28.105 [SPEAKER_00]: And aggressive, a lot of paparazzi stalking. 05:28.833 --> 05:34.536 [SPEAKER_01]: The images that people were like using to sort of validate their suspicions that like underneath her whole thing. 05:34.596 --> 05:43.399 [SPEAKER_01]: She was this like, heck, we're photos of her going about her life, taken by the paparazzi, where she's like not made up as the Britney Spears of performer. 05:43.980 --> 05:53.824 [SPEAKER_01]: But is doing things like smoking and driving with her baby on her lap, which she grew up doing as a kid, but doesn't translate as much to Hollywood. 05:54.142 --> 06:07.446 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but more than just Brittany, I would say this era was particularly notable as a troublesome moment for young Hollywood and it did sort of coincide with Perez's meteoric rise. 06:07.466 --> 06:12.628 [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'll call it like the Bimbos Summit era, which you know, Bimbos Summit. 06:13.088 --> 06:26.754 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, just thinking, sorry, when on the topic of Brittany and the way that she was treated in the paparazzi, I just remember, I read this quote, I was reading Marilyn Monroe's Wikipedia page, and it was about her death, and Mr. Lawrence Olivier, who she famously didn't get along with after she died. 06:27.314 --> 06:36.118 [SPEAKER_00]: He was like, I don't think that she, like, died because of drugs, I think she died because she was the, quote, complete victim of Bally, who in sensation. 06:36.858 --> 06:39.220 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think I would apply that to Brittany and all the stars at this time. 06:39.521 --> 06:41.783 [SPEAKER_00]: They were complete victims of value and sensation. 06:41.803 --> 06:43.964 [SPEAKER_01]: Value and sensation, absolutely.