rise of the machines

I realize, given the spectacularly brief half-life of web-related goings-on, that this is, like, way old news. But I finally watched the clip of Gawker editor Emily Gould’s dust-up with Jimmy Kimmel on last Friday’s installment of Larry King Live. And, um, dude.

I’m not going to get into the he-said-she-said specifics of this particular incident, because any discussion of the actual performance of Gould or Kimmel seems to veer off pretty quickly into name-calling, which I’m not much good at. Unless that name is “dickhead,” which … actually might be pretty appropriate in this case, but I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which participant I feel deserves such special mention.

The most interesting thing to me about the encounter was not that it happened at all, but rather that it happened again. More and more, it seems, celebrities are getting all in a tizzy about the way in which the press invades or misconstrues their private lives. Some of this discontent is manifest as action: celebrities are calling for media blackouts and boycotts; they’re attacking photographers with fists, umbrellas, and occasionally cars. But for the most part, celebrities are just indulging in a good, old-fashioned bitch-and-moan. They wonder, out loud and in anger, why they can’t keep their private lives private. Why they can’t make out sloppily in a club without it showing up on Page Six. Why they can’t go a day without foundation without it showing up in Star. Why they can’t go to Whole Foods without it showing up on Gawker Stalker. Isn’t it our right as Americans, they argue, to buy our overpriced cheese in peace?

And we, the unfamous and unpublicized, think, “Good point.” Because that much attention can’t be fun. I know that I wouldn’t like it - I don’t photograph well on a good day, much less in my natural unwashed and unkempt state. And it’s not easy to hear criticism of any kind - anyone with a mother knows that.

Now, I’m a pretty easy mark when it comes to eliciting sympathy. I can feel bad for pretty much everyone - rich, poor, old, young. I can’t watch The Office sometimes because I feel so bad for Michael. Who is, mind you, a fictional character played by an actor. I don’t know why it is - I suspect it’s the result of some combination of Catholic heritage, Midwestern childhood, and Canadian citizenship - but it is, and so I accept it. And fast-forward through a lot of TV.

But apparently even I have limits. And that limit is Jimmy Kimmel. Because when I watched the clip above, I was absolutely dumbstruck by the insinuation that I should in some way feel bad for a funny guy with funnier friends and a fucking shit-ton of money and fame.

So here’s the thing: you MADE this happen, celebrities. You needed publicity for your movies and coverage of your television shows. You needed public adulation. You needed popularity. And the media needed your popularity, too, for sales, for ratings, for readers. And it would’ve been a great little circle-jerk of an arrangement. Except for one thing: you underestimated the public. Don’t get me wrong, as a group we’re pretty fucking stupid - but we’re not nearly so stupid as you want us to be.

You thought that once you’d created the hunger for celebrity news that we’d be content to eat only 100% certified flack-fed pabulum. And now you’re pissed off that we want something different, that people are clever enough to realize that there’s more to celebrity life - the very thing that you’ve encouraged us to obsess about - than carefully worded press releases. You’re pissed that people want news from tmz.com instead of the Tonight Show. You’re pissed that nobody reads Cindy Adams, and that everyone reads unsourced Internet gossip. You’re pissed that Gawker Stalker prints items sent in by nameless people instead of the items sent in by your own fucking publicists. You’re pissed that what was once a carefully flattering one-way conversation has become a riot of public opinion and response.

You built the robots, and now they’re up in arms against you.

Well, tough shit. You chose this. No one held a gun to your head and said “You have two options. Win Ben Stein’s Money … or, you know, die.” There are plenty of pleasantly anonymous jobs out there. When you choose to put yourself out there, you choose to accept the consequences. Can’t handle parody? Don’t write a book. Can’t get over a flame war? Don’t blog. Can’t face the passing insinuation that you were drunk that one time? Don’t make your public persona about boozing it up.

If you can’t take the heat, get out of the goddamned fire. Work at a bank, work in a factory, work at a school. Get up, keep to yourself, go home. Then I can guarantee that no one will give a shit what you do in your spare time. But you want to be a public figure? Accept the fundamental nature of the public. The public isn't some sweet-natured, empty-headed golden retriever that exists solely to love you. It's a teeming mass of personality that runs the gamut from disinterested to curious to fucking bat-shit crazy. And because of that, you’re never going to be able to control public opinion or public behavior unless you, like, start killing people. I understand that it's frustrating - after all, it's been frustrating world leaders for centuries - but somehow I doubt that a bunch of actors and entertainers are going to figure out a way around it.

So, you know, really: stop with the whining. Because, first of all, it makes you sound like an asshole - would that we all had such problems. And being an asshole is the quickest way to get more of that mean-spirited press that hurts your feelings so much. Public accountability kind of sucks that way.

But all of this boo-hoo celebrity Sturm und Drang is also deeply disingenuous—and as I said before, we’re dumb, but we’re not that dumb. You can’t claim that you don’t love the public eye when the public eye is what made you famous, when the public eye is what keeps you famous.

You can’t play John Connor in public when behind the scenes you’re actually the Terminator.

So until you don’t want to be famous anymore, don't come crying to us. Dickhead. (More)