Ashley Dupree and The Buzz of Myspace

I like to think of media as a storm.

All the various forms of communication and marketing work together, and off of each other, like elements that form a type of weather. Like weather, the conditions of the storm affect us all. A swirling mass of radio and television signals, newspapers in Starbucks, the scrolling headlines in supermarket checkout lines, impossible to avoid.

Some call it “Buzz.”

From Nobrow

The air was fuzzy with the weird yellow tornado light of Times Square by day, a blend of sunlight and wattage, the real and the mediated — the color of Buzz. Buzz is the collective stream of consciousness, William James’s “buzzing confusion,” objectified, a shapeless substance into which politics and gossip, art and pornography, virtue, and money, the fame of heroes and the celebrity of murderers, all bleed.

I think that what was buzz around the turn of the millenium has turned into something much more overwhelmingly universal and damaging to the culture.

It has turned into a storm.

The media weather is always stranger, heavier, during election times. Blog traffic is up. Cable News ratings too.

The passions that are espoused from politics feed the storm, and at the same time are nourished by the storm. It’s a weird-little loop. An exponentially growing loop, however, as every new media draws on other pre-existing media in a symbiotic relationship. An article goes out from Reuters, immediately the cable news puts the content of said article on T.V screens, and at the same time a million hack bloggers like myself go to work dissecting the article, pontificating on the article, the million readers of those blogs (1 blog=1 reader, yes, sad) either agree with said analysis or disagree, but the effect is everybody thinking about and talking about the same thing, at home or at work.

Soon, the entire country is engulfed in that one topic, wading through the media storm.

The tragic and sordid tale of Elliot Spitzer is a perfect example of the “media storm” at work. The story of a governor that was known as an anti-corruption crusader getting busted for prostitution is a sensationally rich one, it involves all the classic elements of the American public’s fasinations: Politics, Sex, Corruption, Hypocrisy.

It injected itself into the public’s conscious at a time when passions and interest were high due to the election and the thing turned into a perfect media storm.

Following that, the pictures of the prostitute, the suddenly infamous Ashley Dupree, hit the media. Interest in the girl and the story spiked as millions of men out there suddenly imagined Elliot Spitzer having sex and were surprisingly jealous.

The storm is now passing through the life of this 22 year old girl, an aspiring singer, like a tornado. (for some reason, whenever I see mention of her singing it’s accompanied by quotes – like we’re supposed to doubt her sincerity… weird)

T.V.
Internet.
Newspapers.

They all rummaged through the pictures and her Myspace page like salivating dogs through a tipped-over trash can.

In these strange times, myspace is treated like a public relations communique. A resume/headshot/press release all in one. Allowing us a sort of personal spin, myspace is private myth-making in action.

That’s why everyone poses like they’re in a magazine on myspace, preening for the camera while partying like “rock stars”.

We know that we’re being judged and gladly offer ourselves up for it.

A comment on her page strangely illuminates the irony of the storm’s attention…

Hi Love,
the Best thing is to take All this Media Attention and Remind the Public there is a War Going On. There are Important Elections, and Many Women Around the World who are Struggling to Survive and Need Help…..You are a Beautiful Human Being…. with the Power to Use Your Voice, Your Music and Your Light…to Make a Positive Difference. I Know it is Within you…..You are a Beautiful Human Being…Take good care of your Self

What’s funny about this comment is that of the 8 million views, hundreds, perhaps thousands were from so-called “reporters” looking for her story. The very people this commenter is addressing.

What’s it like to be Ashley Dupree? A household name overnight?

Millions of people saw the picture of Ashley in her bikini, on the yacht in St. Tropez. Her copper skin glowing with suntanning lotion. Her sunglasses stylish and expensive, her face mysterious, sexy and badass.

She became a superstar, a supernova, as everyone around the country told someone else yesterday, “hey, did you see the pictures of the hooker Spitzer was caught with? She’s pretty hot.”

She had the country biting to find out more about her, without ever even hearing her speak, or knowing more about her than the information on her myspace, her one mediocre song. She might even get a record deal.
The demand for this high-priced call girl is at a fevered pitch.

NEW YORK, New York —

As her instant celebrity status continues to climb in the wake of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal, Ashley Alexandra Dupre has now received a $1 million offer to bare it all.

A rep for Hustler Magazine has confirmed exclusively to Access Hollywood a seven-figure offer will be made to the call girl.

“Larry Flynt and Hustler Magazine will be offering $1 Million to Ashley Dupre to pose for Hustler Magazine,” the rep told Access. “We want this to happen as soon as possible.”

Good for her, I say.

She should get a bigger reward for having sex with rat-faced Elliot Spitzer, a man her father’s age, than four thousand dollars an hour.

It also raises the odd aspect that being outed as a hooker is going to net this young girl millions of dollars and fame. Not the kind of message we as a culture should really be sending, is it?

Even stranger, and yet perfect for our times, her myspace page is quoted by news media like it’s an official news source. The media, probably unintentionally, is therefore encouraging the perpetuation of the Myspace delusion.

If there can be a God delusion, there’s certainly a Myspace delusion.

Constructing an identity we present to the world.

Engaged in wishful self-promotion.

Resulting in a dishonest projected image of ourselves.

This is me… I’m interesting, different, thoughtful, fun-loving.

Please like me.

By covering these accounts, the media storm reinforces the idea that we will be thought of the way we would like to think of ourselves.

Mine goes like this:

This is me… I’m well-read, well-traveled, and have great taste in music.

You should like me.

Myspace allows individuals to give the media the narrative of their lives, should something news worthy happens to you.

It’s a development that will change our culture.

Yes, the media storm is our culture. It decides what is culture, delivers the culture, and explains culture. The media storm is the platform for everything, the tool through which we consume, and now with web 2.0, participate in culture. In another sense, it’s how we interact with the world.

Right now, you and me, through the very existence of this blog, are contributing to the media storm; even as I critique and lambaste the culture of celebritihood, sloppy journalism, and low brow interests, I add my own shrillness to the buzz, my own sloppy journalism.

I participate in the very act I advocate against.

The devaluing of our culture.

I sip Sunkist from a bright orange aluminum can and ponder this a little while the breeze sweeps into my San Fernando Valley apartment, cooling it off. Down the road, the 101 is swamped with idling cars spewing exhaust into the atmospheric, mettalic blue.

I ponder the media storm while looking at a billboard, a block away on Ventura, advertising a religion that worships at the very intersection of Hollywood and myth, delusion and money.

Scientology.

To me, Scientology seems like the perfect religion for the media storm, supplying believers with a entertaining genesis story and feeding them an exaggerated sense of self-worth, all the while trading spirituality for money.

Just ask Tom Cruise, he’ll testify.