Whether you're a child, an adult desperately trying to cling to the bygone symbols of childhood, or simply have a poorly developed palate, the fact is, you love Cap'n Crunch™ brand breakfast cereal, despite all of the good reasons not too. Well, good news, corn syrup fetishists: contrary to published reports, your beloved cartoon-clad corn byproduct nuggets are not disappearing.
The economy may wax and wane, but overheated tech rhetoric lives forever. Today's how news: The internet apps for Apple's internet phone will soon be bigger than the internet. What?
It's the rumor that's been burning up the internet for the last few days: in an upcoming issue of Esquire, actress Anne Hathaway will open up about her love of anal sex. After describing it as one of the most sensual things she's ever done and something that makes her feel "feminine in a very special way," the actress supposedly says, "Every woman should try it, otherwise they miss out on something amazing." While Hathaway has played her fair share of sexually provocative roles in films like Havoc and Brokeback Mountain, we were skeptical of her newfound candor; nevertheless, the rumor has only built up steam over the last few days (it was spread by Gawker, LA Rag Mag, and thousands of other sites). Emboldened by our investigation into Megan Fox's own magazine confessions, we knew we had to find out: are these Hathaway quotes for real, and if not, where did they come from?Our first instinct was to disbelieve the story; after all, virtually every profile we've ever read of Hathaway mentions how carefully and professionally she answers questions, concerned that her quotes will be taken out of context. Had Hathaway been emboldened after her split with boyfriend Raffaello Follieri, or was someone putting naughty words in her mouth? Turns out, it's the latter. We contacted Esquire for comment, and spokesperson Rhett Usry was shocked by the rumor. "Absolutely not true," he told us. "There is no interview with Anne Hathaway at all in the upcoming issue of Esquire." So where did the story originate? All signs point to this September 12 posting on Celeb.Dump, a photo-laden blog promising "Sexy Celebrity Pictures With Little To No Bullshit" (and headlines like "Stacy Keibler is so very hot" and "Jessica Simpson touching herself"). "Thanks to Miss M. from Esquire for letting me know" about the rumor, said the poster (who declined our repeated requests to comment on his tip). As for how this obscure bit of gossip hit the big time, we're betting it's due to a potent mix of wishful thinking, Hathaway's Rachel Getting Married press tour, and lingering conflation of the actress with Brokeback Mountain. Either that, or Follieri's got an axe to grind. Memo to Celeb.Dump: if your "source" claims to be Esquire's liaison to the Vatican, it may be time to place some calls. [Photo Credit: AP]
Remember those pictures of boxing champ Oscar de la Hoya wearing fishnets and stilettos that surfaced last fall? And he said that they were fakes, but everybody was like "Ha, yea, right. Of course you say that, trannie boy." Well, turns out they were really fake! I'll be darned. Oscar's reputation will never fully recover, but it must be said: this was great Photoshop work:
The LA Times has now apologized for its story last week asserting that Puff Daddy knew in advance about the 1994 shooting and robbery of Tupac Shakur. It looked bad since The Smoking Gun ran its debunking of the Times' evidence yesterday, but this was a very quick collapse of a very big story. The paper's own investigation is ongoing. And one of the guys named as a conspirator in the story is promising an "epic lawsuit." [LAT]
It seems obvious that Web 2.0 is not as citizen-generated as people would like to believe. So obvious that Slate's recent article, "The Wisdom of the Chaperones," seems too mainstream for the usually contrarian site. Writer Chris Wilson imagines that Digg and Wikipedia are still seen as radical examples of the wisdom of the crowds, and reveals that they're run by a small base of power users. Of course, Slate is wrong. Call it banal, but the user-written news site and encyclopedia really are the work of thousands, even millions of casual users.
So, Time Warner, which owns the HBO cable network, Warner Studios, Time Inc. magazines and a slew of other properties, was supposed to be breaking itself up under ruthless new boss, Jeff Bewkes. So, what assets will the giant Manhattan media conglomerate shed? It may possibly reduce cable holdings; split up AOL, as long-rumored; and review strategic options for the resulting internet businesses. And 100 corporate jobs are to go. Radical!
Does having a famous hot chick for a girlfriend make you totally suck at sports? This "Curse of the Babe" theory is being tossed around today by sports columnists, angry fans, and people who care about football only in the sense that it involves celebrities (that would be most Gawker readers). Tom Brady dates slobberlicious super model Gisele Bundchen. And the Post even reported they were sexing it up with sexy sex the week before the game! Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo went on a vacation with Jessica Simpson before his playoff game; he lost, of course. Are celebrity girls really cursed? Or is there a deeper psychological mechanism at work? We know the answer, which we will tell you now.
"The Rough-and-Tumble Online Universe Traversed by Young Cybernauts" is not the most promising headline for a NY Times trend piece. Nor is the lede, which reads like rejected copy for Season 1 of "To Catch a Predator." The Times is reporting on a documentary on PBS's Frontline, which dregs up the fears about the Internet that have floated around since the 90s. The Times grossly misrepresented the documentary; updates below. Problem is, these fears are unfounded, and the Internet is practically safer for kids than their own homes. I shall now demonstrate this with a truckload of stats, logic, and some admittedly unfair anecdotal evidence.
Don't pretend the low ratings for Sunday's 60 Minutes segment about Facebook say anything meaningful. Tech blog Silicon Alley Insider concluded that the world at large doesn't care about Facebook, but that's an unfair assumption. The awkward interview with site founder Mark Zuckerberg and a description of a site mostly geared toward college students may not have been the best material for the show's aging audience, but how many of them were even tuned in after the preceding segment, which explored rape and genocide in the Congo? It feels good to draw an obvious conclusion — Surprise! Old people don't care about Facebook — and I can sympathize with anyone squeezing a blog post out of a fake analysis. But the exercise is utterly useless when there's a more obvious answer.
This YouTube site, it could be big! Pew Research says YouTube's grown 18% since the writers' strike began, and the BBC says that means people are looking to the web to fill the video void, a story bloggers predicted last fall. The New York Post claims the same. Wrong: YouTube's growth isn't much faster than usual; the site has enjoyed accelerating growth since it launched in 2005. In fact, it might have dropped off in January. Video sites Break.com and Veoh remain flat by comparison, and MySpace video hasn't grown enough to have much effect on the site as a whole. Maybe it's because web video resembles the still-running reality shows more than the scripted shows that suffer from the strike. But the growth of YouTube has nothing to do with the aborted TV season.
