Slut-shaming and Perez Hilton's Girly Demographic

We knew celeb gossip queen Perez Hilton's readers were all female, right? Well, mostly female. The pink layout of his website would pretty much tell you that right away, even if his celebsession wouldn't.

But it's interesting to get a confirmation that team Perez knows its demographic. I just signed up for a username on his site and the sign up form is above. As you can see, the defaults are set at 23-year-old females, and the security question defaults to "favorite celebrity."

It's particularly interesting, then, that his ruling narrative revolves around original sin (i.e. fornication) and shaming primarily the celebrity women who engage in it (too much). Salon's Broadsheet picked up on his ongoing bashing of "Sluttyienna Miller" last week, and pointed to feminist blog Jezebel's column "Missdemeanors," that chronicles the misogynist things gossip columnists (especially Perez) say. 

Welcome back to Missdemeanors, in which we accuse gossip bloggers of Crimes Against Womanity. We do this because the gossip industry is sexist, and only getting worse. These people are paid to write "gossip" but, 99% of the time, the words they use to go with celebrity pictures denigrate, critique, belittle and objectify women.

Too true. So my question is: why are young women so addicted to these sites? I mean, isn't this supposed to be the inheritor generation, the one that inherits the benefits fought for by the first three waves of feminism? Why is this the generation that so gleefully flocks to misogynist fundamentalist churches, frequents slut-shaming gossip sites, and doesn't even know what "Ms." (the term, not the magazine) is?

Well, I pass on explaining the whole generation, but Perez I can take a whack at. The gossip queen himself has stated very articulately that gossip needs to be an ongoing narrative. The easiest and most basic narrative in our culture is the morality play. And we don't need Arthur Miller to tell us that people love to be part of an accusatory mob.

Plus, there's something about celebrities that brings out the worst in us. We identify with them and want to be them, but their bad behavior can also get glued to their success and looks (both of which are beyond us mortals) so that we don't feel so bad about not having the latter.

I'm wondering if girls who engage in this stuff do it without connecting Perez's outrageously misogynist treatment of women to the misogynist treatment that they themselves receive. For my part, I really enjoyed Perez's site for many months, but over time the toxic atmosphere poisoned my enjoyment. I couldn't stand the constant evaluation of women's looks. So I still pop my head in there when I need information--Perez is still the best source--but I don't have a feed anymore.

What do you think? Is it that girls are not noticing the sexist connection, or that they are taking out their frustration at the sexism they experience on other women?

Plus, read this new Wired profile of Perez.