2009: Pop Culture Writing

Welcome to the Celebri-spiral blog. I wrote one daily post for five months (January 1-May 31, 2007) exploring celebrity culture-the good, bad and oh-so ugly. On January 1, 2007, my new year's wish was to Just Say No to toxic celebrities.

On that day, I am resolved to:

-Take up Yoga again.
-Cut out white flour.
-Try to be on time.
-Stop reading magazines like US, In Style, and In Touch, and avoid websites like Gawker.com and Defamer.com.

As part of my resolution to change bad habits, I took on the role of toxic celebrity culture in my life. I wrote daily to understand better my own love/hate relationship with pop culture, a condition I refer to as being in a "celebri-spiral." I invited fellow celebrity culture addicts who love/hate reading pop culture magazines and visiting celebrity web sites, yet refuse to let go of our US Magazine, to post to the Celebri-spiral: Enough Already blog. I still want to know why we immerse in celeb-escapism.

Before Celebri-spiral, I wrote several published articles on pop culture, and also co-authored E-Pop! for two years (1998-2000), which seems like a lifetime ago. E-Pop! was an E-Zine featuring very personal and satirical take on the people, politics, and media coverage of the day. Maybe it's not surprising that, with a slightly harsher tone and much more prolific web presence (TMZ anyone?), celebrity culture is thriving,with more media coverage and consumption than ever. Here are a few fun highlights from E-Pop!

In 2009, I'd like to say I've eschewed pop culture, but all facets of my work still collide with it. The pseudo-addiction has merely subsided and I am still writing about it. Here's an example of a recent pop culture piece I wrote: Pop Culture's Memorable Moments of the Last 50 Years. I left the less pop-oriented events, like the moon landing and shuttle explosion, to others. My piece was on Princess Diana's death. No surprise to those who know me.