I love blogs. One of the first things I do every day is go online and see what’s going on. From Perez Hilton, Bossip and Pop Eater, to Celebitchy, Gawker and Huffington Post, I make sure I’m informed of what’s new in the world of news and entertainment and, naturally, gossip. The blogs I listed are some of the leading news and gossip blogs around the world and as much as they might sometimes have questionable news (Bossip especially), they command the world’s attention.
When it comes to celebrities, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and now Taylor Momsen have all felt the wrath of gossip bloggers.
Perez Hilton calls Lindsay “Lindsanity Lohan” and Celebitchy calls Gossip Girl actress Taylor Momsen, “Raccoon Mcpantless” because of her raccoon-like eye make-up and her tendency to not wear pants.
But what about South Africa? Well, we are on our way to blog heaven if some of the entertainment blogs we have are anything to go by. MikaStefano.com, JustCurious.co.za and JucyAfrica.com are only three of some of South Africa’s top entertainment websites. Run by Mika Stefano, Lelo Boyana and Nzinga Qunta respectively, the bloggers are making celebs sit up and take notice.
Mika Stefano started his blog in 2008 and it’s been going ever since. He estimates he gets between 1 800 and 3 000 viewers a day. “I started blogging from a Facebook group a few years back,” he said. “I enjoyed blogging and saw an opportunity in creating a gossip and entertainment website. That’s when I started MikaStefano.com.” Mika’s blog is aimed at young people who are interested in the local entertainment industry.
“I can’t honestly say I have one specific target market as I am constantly surprised at the amount of people who read my website. I was flattered when an old Indian woman walked up to me in a mall and said she loves MikaStefano.com”
Lelo Boyana, who runs the popular Just Curious website, started blogging on television website TVSA and from there formed Just Curious.
Her site had 150 000 “unique visitors” in its first year – which translated into pages being viewed more than 1 113 721 times.
“It’s now a year old and it has been an amazing journey in the world of entertainment blogging,” she said.
Just Curious is for 18-35-year-olds curious about entertainment news, celebrity gossip, current affairs, sport, television just about everything that you can put under the entertainment banner
“We have a variety of bloggers who are knowledgeable about different aspects of entertainment, so that helps to balance the content we dish out.”
For Jucy Africa’s Qunta, a former Channel O presenter, it was different.
“It started as a hobby and we made it work so well that it’s now a business,” she said. She started with Jucy.co.za in 2008 and it revolutionised entertainment blogs. She once said of Jucy: “I wanted to read about celebs from all over Africa and I didn’t find a site that had that kind of information, so I started one.”
Jucy.co.za was recently revamped and relaunched as Jucy Africa in October.
“JucyAfrica is aimed at young urban, affluent and inspirational readers from South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana who love entertainment, travel, fashion and well, yes, a bit of gossip.”
Although similar in many respects, the blogs differ markedly in approach.
Stefano, who calls himself “GP’s Gossip Gangster”, says his blog is also personal. “I talk about my personal feelings towards artists, what I thought of an event and my encounters with celebs on and off the red carpet,” he said.
Boyana said: “We are more than just a gossip site. It would be limiting for us to have only gossip because there are so many other exciting things going on that the youth of SA should know about and that’s what we try to bring to our readers. That’s why we call it ‘Entertainment beyond the Usual’,” Lelo said.
The three blogs have frequent interviews with celebrities. It works like a charm in some situations, such as Jucy Africa’s piece on the Wimpy Cheesanator advert girl and socialite Boity Thulo – but sometimes it backfires against the celebrity, as on Just Curious’s interview with rapper Tuks Senganga who came across as arrogant and, naturally, us plebs do not like arrogant celebrities (even when they really should be, but hey who cares because we “made them”).
Entertainment blogs can easily become malicious and we have seen this when it comes to Perez Hilton and the controversial outing of closeted gay celebrities. “Our ‘highly’ sensitive celebrities would commit suicide if local blogs were as brutal and intrusive as the ones abroad,” Boyana says.
However, Qunta says that she struggles to read negative articles. “I really struggle to read content that is overly negative and includes personal attacks on people. Some people choose to follow that model as controversy always generates noise, but in the long term we want to build a brand that is smart and bankable. So that’s why we steer clear of that type of content.”
With malice comes the threat of legal action. “Just Curious has been threatened twice in the past year. The second threat came a day before our first anniversary but I haven’t seen any documents to that effect and I doubt I will,” Boyana said.
“More than anything, the threats are meant to intimidate us and I say this because worse things get written about celebrities in the mainstream tabloid media and they don’t make noise, but when it’s on a blog they start pulling all sorts of stunts as if we have no right to talk about them.”
Stefano agrees. “It’s actually very funny, and most of the other bloggers would agree that these celebs want to be in the media eye but can’t deal with the criticism. I’m not here to make friends. So, if they can’t deal with what I have to say, they can simply hit the cursor on the little red cross on top of the screen and leave the blog.” - Sunday Tribune