On the fence: Perez Hilton

Perez Hilton. The notoriously bad celebrity gossip blogger is now a notorious softy. With 5 websites updated daily by who knows how many ghost writers (he claims to write them all, but I remain suspicious), he’s built quite an empire around being Perez. But what does being Perez even mean these days?

The first huge blogger to rip some serious celebrity b-hole, is now the blogging world’s biggest chummy pre-school teacher, giving every half-assed celebrity an A for effort, for whatever new bowel movement they pushed out or paid for and called art.

The Evidence

When I first caught on to Perez Hilton’s gossip blog, I was in love. What he said was so, so harsh, but so so entertaining. He famously called Lauren Conrad from The Hills “meat curtains”, constantly berated Samantha Ronson for being disgusting, and Lindsay Lohan for being a drug addict party girl who didn’t know how to wear underwear. He was like your bitchy best friend who you talk so much shit with about everyone you know, but mean only half of it. +3

He was kind of really mean mean to a lot of people, going above and beyond comedy or reasonable critique. -2

Now, Hilton praises mediocrity. (Nicki Minaj’s Grammy performance? I don’t think so.) -4

However, the onslaught of gay teenager suicides served as a wakeup call to Hilton. He preached tolerance and no bullying to his younger readers, yet bullied the shit out of the rich, famous and infamous celebrities on his site daily. It’s definitely a commendable move, even if it made his site a vanilla, commercial vehicle for his celebrity acquaintances, not to mention a haven for celeb shout-outs (i.e. Simon Cowell for a position on the X Factor that he’s been vying for for years). +2

In attempting to lead by example and ditch the über bully-blogger he built his website empire around, Hilton became soft. I don’t mean that he simply stopped the “meat curtain” parade of insults on boring or annoying celebrities, he morphed into a sort of perma-positive celebrity gossip preacher who lost any and all ability to have an opinion. -3 

Granted, his personal life affected his shift in attitude as well. He went from an admittedly overweight and depressed man, to a fit and happy man over the surprisingly sane routine of watching his diet and exercise. He even vowed to take his shirt off in videos posted to his blog a couple of times throughout his years-long transformation from unfit to healthily svelte. After forming his second “Hilton” website, cocoperez.com, he created fitperez.com as a way to encourage others to tackle a transition to a healthy lifestyle in a sane way. +5

Constant grammar and entire word mistakes. (We all make them, but his site is world famous and makes a ton of dough!) -1

He’s friends with Lady Gaga. +2

He has a past, dirty reputation of being a downright mean person. He called Will.i.am not an “artist but a fucking faggot”, despite being a gay man who wrote a lot about gay rights. GLAAD was obviously outraged. A punch in the face was involved too. Not a pretty situation for anyone. He also, in the past, has been lambasted for misogynistic views towards women. BOOOOO!  -5 

He has built a brand and multiple websites that are highly successful. +5 (A point for each website, perezitos for kids, fitperez for health, cocoperez for fashion and teddyhilton for animals)

The Score

2

Ok, ok, I guess the only fence issues with Perez, my first blog-love, is his outrageous, mean mean past, and that he’s gone soft. While I look at the score, I realize it’s not a bad thing to become a more positive force in the internet world, where there are so many nasty comments elsewhere. He’s friends with Lady Gaga, which is huge in my book. I guess I just wish he’d ditch the nicey-nice, curb the holy-shit-bitch, and bring back a little of the snark that we all fell in love with. That’s all.