Issue 26

Popculturediedin2009.com is a Tumblr blog launched in 2013 that chronicled the lives of the beautiful and the damned. Matt James created the blog while still in High School. Obsessed with the era in which every single day seemed to produce a career ending nightmare, the blog and its ethos depict a different time. A time in which paparazzi laws didn't exist, ‘upskirt’ photos did exist and celebrity mugshots rivalled Warhol’s Polaroids.

Did pop culture die in 2009? I think of the current starlets that dominate the headlines of late and I feel conflicted.. In the era of Julia Fox, Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian surely pop culture and the machine that fuels its penetration isn't dead.. in fact it appears to be more alive (and unbearable) than ever, or does it?

I remember checking PerezHilton.com every morning before leaving for school. Sometimes with one eye closed, terrified I would discover a dreaded obituary or be faced with a renaissance style image of a twenty something year old starlet trying to navigate a crowd of 60+ men mercilessly hounding her.. think Botticelli but make it Kitson. Ah the good old days! Pop culture truly was alive and well and for better or for worse I was addicted.

The Holy Trinity… also known as ‘the Father, the Son and The Holy Spirit’ (or, “Britney, Prars and Lindsay if you are a pop culture obsessed queer person in the latter half of your twenty’s, who grew up during the era of TRL) were the faces of this era of chaos and clubbing.

Yes, I was the six year old boy who couldn’t talk about anything other than Britney Spears. I studied her music videos while sitting just inches away from the TV, I knew every single word to every single song and cut pictures of her out of copies of Smash Hits magazine and plastered my wall with them as if I was covering up a spewing artery.. a spewing stimulation artery which could only be healed by consuming Wade Robson dance routines accompanied by addictive hooks served by an oiled up, brown eyed precisely produced, Pop Princess.

This perfectly procured pop package was far too stimulating for me to pass on. I, along with an entire generation fell for the image sold to us, (mostly funded by everybody’s second favourite cola drink, Pepsi). The glittering, golden, shiny dream.. The American Dream.

The second coming of Swedish pop, (the first being ABBA.. in case you were wondering, which I profusely hope you weren’t!) was the ruling force within the music industry.. I’m referring to the fact that the majority of Spears’ hit singles in the first half of her career were produced by Swedish pop music Maestro Max Martin (The Spice Girls in my opinion were responsible for wetting our pallets, but if I start harping on about them we would be here for literal days).

Web.1 was hitting its stride and the letters ‘AOL’ were letters which, when aligned in that particular order, actually meant something. Directly pre and post 9/11 was a time in which the web was becoming part of our daily lives. The word with the strap-on in this case is ‘part’.

Ah… yes, that wonderful time when the internet was a part of our lives and not our whole life.

The way in which I break down my own personal understanding of the term ‘Web.3’and what its future will entail is if I co-relate the phrase with what I know.. celebrities…

I think ‘Celeb.3’.

Celebrities, pop culture, music videos and magazine covers… If I’m ever going to truly understand what Web.3 signifies while working in one of the world's leading independent agencies (we love a plug!) I have to break it down to what I know, hence the comparison between Web.3 and Celeb.3.

To me, Web.1 is to Britney’s collectively perceived wholesome, Christian, virginal image as Web.3 is to Britney’s current image, an image of a woman completely chewed up and spit out by a world in which seemed only to operate in order to fuel her demise.

The American Dream eh?

If Web.1 was Britney’s ‘Sometimes’ music video then Web.3 must be Britney’s current Insta Reel videos. Sometimes bizarre but always charming, Britney’s reels depict an image of somebody completely and utterly feeling themselves. The accompanying captions can frequently prove far too erratically written (says me!), lengthy and doused with emojis to provide a non-frustrating reading experience but I always think to myself “she’s fucking living her life and I’m here for it!”

As I rejoice in the visual example I’ve provided myself with when trying to dismantle concepts such as the metaverse and the dreaded discourse around NFT’s, I reflect on Web.2 AKA Celeb.2 and retrace my steps as a consumer of celebrity culture in the mid to late noughties and beyond… A harrowing trip to take upon reflection, but a trip that helps me to bridge the gap between Britney’s Virginal era and her Martyr era which also serves as the bridge between Web.1 and Web.3 and the possibilities that exist beyond.

How could our Holy Virgin become a Martyr? And how can that tell me what the future of the internet will look like? I’m not completely sure to be honest, but using my trusty science I try to break it down.

Celeb.3 is an era in which one, who privy to the promises of the American dream, would most likely want to fulfil their self-diagnosed prophesy of fame and adoration within.

We thankfully (or not) live in an era in which one who is courting fame or living their life at the epicentre of it, can carefully construct their image and breadcrumb us, (the public) with supporting snippets of ‘reality’ that narrate the image they so strongly uphold.

(See: ‘Influencers’, ‘Instagram’ as a whole and/or the Nobel Peace Prize deserving PR exercise that was Keeping Up With The Kardashians which ran for twenty seasons spanning fourteen years and saw the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations to completion).

The Celeb.3 era has proven merciless to those who profited from the Celeb.2 era, namely the paparazzi or, anybody who had enough money to buy a DSLR camera and had access to a vehicle along with the bravery (or recklessness, depending on which way you look at it) to mercilessly pursuit stars who just asked for their right to twinkle (a Marilyn Monroe quote tattooed on Lindsay Lohan’s arm, in case you thought I’d gone all soft on you) in the Hollywood hills.

Celeb.2 peaked with ‘The Bimbo Summit’, an image so coined by The New York Post, displayed on their front cover depicting Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan taken on a rainy night in November 2006 while party hopping (An activity in which I pride myself on) sitting in the front of Hiltons Mercedes looking vacantly into the lenses of those who surrounded them with DSLR cameras. The Bimbo Summit is to Celeb.2 as Facebook is to Web.2. Exciting, explosive and somewhat ethereal.

If the icon of the actual Holy Trinity is the triumvirate of the father, the son and the holy spirit then the icon of my Holy Trinity is this image of the three girls.

Paris Hilton, the eternally unlucky in love, once upon a time jailbird who burst onto the scene in the year 2000 with a spread in Vanity Fair written by Nancy Jo Styles of Alexis Neirs “Nancy Jo… this is Alexis Neirs calling” fame and photographed by David La Chapelle entitled ‘Hip Hop Debs’ recently wed venture capitalist Carter Reum in a lavish wedding depicted in Hilton’s Peacock series ‘Paris In Love’.

Hilton can be credited with creating the ‘famous for being famous’ trope with thanks to her ability to play the ‘dumb blonde’ á la Marilyn Monroe and the late, great doomed by fate Anna Nicole Smith and guidance from marketing genius Manager Rob Moore who was quoted as saying “I took all the theory in pop culture that I already learned… If Barbie could actually talk, that would be the biggest brand in the world. And the name became Paris Hilton”.

Hilton amassed a billion dollar fortune while becoming the glamorous clown we all evidently needed in life to feel secure. Credited with being one of the first ever reality stars (although, as a die-hard Little Edie and Grey Gardens fan I have to dispute this title) Hilton survived genuine privacy violations which resulted in not only the infamous ‘One Night In Paris’ adult tape which was sold world-wide and rivalled VHS sales of James Cameron’s Titanic, but the registry of ParisHiltonExposed.com a website which monetised personal hand written journal notes and footage of Hilton for a subscription fee of $39.97, content which was secured by the purchase of one of Hiltons storage units, which she claimed she forgot about that was originally sold for $2,775 and then again resold for $10,000.000.

Lindsay Lohan can be credited as the celebrity with the most iconic, if not extensive mugshot collection (most definitely iconic in my eyes..). Lohan showed promise as a young actress in the 1998 remake of The Parent Trap (Lohan’s Irish grandmother has stressed that Lohan deserved an Oscar for her performance, one can’t help but wholeheartedly agree!) where she portrayed Hallie Parker and Allie James, identical twins separated at birth who embark on a serendipitous mission which leads them to discover each other’s existence.

Somewhere between Celeb.1 and Celeb.2 Lohan seemed to get lost in the glare and become a target of the tabloids who preyed on her vulnerability, resulting in hour by hour reports on her late nights at late noughties hotspots AREA, Le Deux (Remember The Hills?), Hyde and back again.

Hilton served jail time which stemmed from a probation violation relating to a cocaine bust in which she gave evidence that the purse containing the substance in her possession was “too cheap” to be hers and that she thought the evidence “was gum” and Lohan was fitted with an ankle tag that inspired Karl Lagerfeld to offer Chanel quilted ankle tag heels for the fashion giant’s 2008 Spring/Summer 2008 collection.

In an all too familiar case of life imitating art the world watched as Britney was taken via ambulance to the UCLA Medical Centre in early 2008. A scene eerily depicted in her 2004 music video for ‘Everytime’. After a refusal to cooperate with her custody agreement in her Los Angeles home, I watched as my Miss American Dream was bundled into the back of an ambulance while swarms of helicopters and on-the-ground paparazzi relentlessly chased her into the night. Spears was placed on a 51/50 hold which went on to become the grounds for her father securing a conservatorship over her.

As the 2010’s came to a close we all seemed to begin the process of washing the blood of Celeb.2 off our hands. Britney (under the deathly restraints of her new found legal situation which deemed her mentally unfit to make any decisions for herself) followed up what is regarded as one of her best works, 2007’s ‘Blackout’ with 2008’s ‘Circus’ and embarked on a 97 date comeback tour.

Paris went in search of her ‘new best friend’ via a reality series which pulled in miniscule numbers compared to her reality TV debut ‘The Simple Life’ and managed to keep on the right side of the law.

Lohan, after several rehab stints filmed a series for Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Network detailing her life learning to live (or not) with sobriety. The show depicted Lohan sorting through containers of items collected by the actress over the years while living out of hotels such as the Chateau Marmont and The Beverly Hills Hotel as she tried to create a home base in New York while fleeing the temptations in LA.

In an all too familiar turn of events, private property belonging to Lohan profiling a list of sexual partners she had kept which was created while the star attended AA was stolen and leaked to the press.

(See: ‘Lindsay Lohan’s list’)

As Web/Celeb.2 eventually drew to a close The Holy Trinity as we once knew them either seemed to turn their lives around (see: everything Britney’s ever done post ‘Womanizer’ promo tour November 2008, Paris’ career as an EDM DJ) or fade into obscurity (Dubai as Lohan likes to call it, where paparazzi are outlawed).

The rise of Instagram ushered out the era of tabloid exclusives, with the ball truly back in the hands of our celebrity subjects. Gossip blogs such as x17Online and TMZ which dominated Web.2 as well as Celeb.2 faded in relevance as a direct link between celebrities and their fans was established, cutting the cord between starlet and stalker.

The era of Celeb.3 feels cautious. An overwhelming feeling of empathy thankfully prevails when we merely think about the celebrities who dominate the Daily Mail.

Gone are the days of all-out war guerrilla tactics. The Me Too Movement along with a general sweeping sense of accountability for the role misogyny and masochism played in the media’s painful pursuit of celebrities and our insatiable appetite for the abhorrent has washed over us like a much needed wave of moral consciousness.

Celeb.3 sees a free and pregnant Britney, a booked and busy Lindsay Lohan and a politically active Paris.

I can only hope that we navigate the waters of Web.3 with the same air of cautiousness that we do Celeb.3… but something tells me it won’t be a Simple Life. As to whether or not pop culture died in 2009? Well, when viewed through the Swarovski crystal-encrusted lens of the Holy Trinity era, it’s deader than Paris’s singing career, but when we take off those sparkly specs and squint, we can see that in fact, pop culture didn’t die in 2009, much like Disco did after the dreaded demolition of 1979,it just changed its name and moved down the street.