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Know Your Enemy

By Courtney Enlow | Celebrity | September 28, 2010 |

By Courtney Enlow | Celebrity | September 28, 2010 |


God fucking dammit TMZ.

In order to do this column properly (not a word, any of you), I have a self-imposed need to do research. This research involves scouring celebrity “news” websites, desperately searching for a nugget of something I can get incensed about. At some point in this search, I will have no choice but to visit TMZ.com.

A visit to TMZ is a lot like a simile of some kind that involves me feeling like a dirty whore. Every time I read one of their articles, pun-filled parodies of news, often sprinkled with dead people, I click away feeling as though I’m part of the problem. And not part of the problem like I am when I see the new Saw movie every year. Like a part of the problem that I want so desperately to undermine and be superior to.

I set out each week to point out the silliness of celebrity culture and how bizarre it is that we know so much about strangers. In addition to making me sound like an incredible douchemaven, this ultimately ends in me joining in the ranks and becoming similarly fascinated by the lives of these people. “My stars and garters, Heidi Montag is in a bikini and has a sexual intercourse video?!” “Gracious me, Justin Bieber has a sister named ‘Jazmyn’? I do believe their mother is a whore.” Things like that.

A majority of the celebrity news websites (all but People.com, really) make a living saying shitty things about famous people. And that’s fine. I do it, too. But TMZ… they’re… different. Like that kid in grade school who tries to be cool and mean like the popular kids and goes just a step too far because they don’t quite know how to interact with people. TMZ is basically an Aspergersy 12-year-old.

See here. I don’t even care about the Kardashians and TMZ just made me feel sorry for Khloe Kardashian. Even more than I already did for the fact her name is “Khloe.” She can’t help that she’s not built like Jessica Rabbit with a vacuous mannequin face.

Then there’s this. What does that even mean? I don’t understand your attempts at writing words, TMZ. Are you implying she has a metal vagina? That the scanner is horny? What?!

Then there was this. As much as I enjoyed Not Another Teen Movie, Sam Huntington is not someone who really has any place in my heart. But “one episode of of ‘CSI: New York’”? That’s just rude.

Fun fact: TMZ is owned by AOL and Telepictures, which used to be known as Lorimar Television. TMZ is the bastard child of those free trial discs that showed up on your parents’ mailbox by the truckload thirteen years ago, and Full House. Which means it might as well be the Tanner family posting cellulite-heavy photos of R&B stars. And they wouldn’t do that. Not even Joey.

The death knell in my self-respect for visiting TMZ? This post. Why, yes, that is death scene photos of a non-famous doctor. Oh, wait, there’s more. Two posts of fatal crash scene photos of some random guy who just happened to be the Dr. Frankenstein who created the Heidi Montag monster, but mostly he was just a guy. And even if he had been famous, that would still be incredibly fucked up. I don’t like the fact that TMZ sends paparazzi to piss people off to the point they say things that can be used against them. I don’t like the fact that they send photographers to take pictures up girls’ dresses, then call them out for indecency for not wearing underwear, which they would not have known if they didn’t have a lens shoved up their cervix like a goddamn pap smear. I don’t like the fact that they could have screwed up a criminal investigation by posting police photos of a beaten pop star after her similarly famous boyfriend beat the shit out of her. And I don’t like that they sell photos of the dead and dying and private 911 calls from family members as a way to make money.

After last time, affectionately known as That Time That One Site Called Courtney Fat, I made a rule that I wouldn’t call out other sites anymore. But TMZ is evil. And they must be destroyed.

But they won’t be. We’re stuck with them. Viva la dead people pictures, I suppose.

Follow Courtney Enlow on Twitter, and read her other stuff at HoboTrashcan.com.