Perez Hilton ... IDIOT

Excuse me while I rant...

I am so sick... of Mario Armando Lavandiera Jr. (more commonly know as Perez Hilton). I was never really enamored with his website (it actually really annoyed me), but he always had some interesting gossip and the graphics were funny at times. [I made my own little Perez graphic for this post] Anyway ... as I said, I never really actively read his website, like I did the NYT or Engadget, but if something pointed me there - I would go and look around for a bit.

When I started using Reader I decided that I would monitor Perez and see what stuff he had - so I added him on a trial basis. I don't remember what was occurring around that time, but I recall him breaking a few things that no other blog had for at least 15-20 minutes -- so I was impressed. Things were good, life was good, no complaints. Perez remained.

Of course since my start with Reader, I've added much more - growing from a few feeds, to way too many. Of late I've picked up the Daily Intel (a NYC based blog), which I really like - and I suggest you check out (here). They usually have any gossip that I might otherwise get from Perez. But I've gotten ahead of myself -- why did I start hating Perez.

Well for one, he slams my Reader with entries - probably like 40-60 a day, which is too much for a non-legit news source. I just don't care about celebrity gossip that much ... and apparently his readers do. But aside from that, scrolling through garbage gossip doesn't really bother me ... but two things he does do bother me.

ONE. Perez seems to think it is his right to out every single person he thinks might be gay. Now calling someone gay who isn't actually gay is one thing - that's just like making fun of them. But calling someone gay who is actually gay but has not come out yet - that's a problem. As a gay man Perez should understand exactly what he is doing - if someone doesn't want to be out, it is not his right to tell them that they should be. He's just a jerk in that sense.

TWO. More recently, as you may or may not be aware, we have been in a recession. Companies have been laying people off, and there has been a lot of news about the economy. I get really pissed off when Perez posts a layoff (often times a few days after it has been through the media cycle) and lists the title as "R.I.P." ... I'm sorry, the company is dying, no one has died ... these people have lives and futures - no one is dead. It really bothers me that he does that - even more so than the fact that it is often quite late. Additionally most of his news regarding said companies is misconstrued - if not blatantly incorrect.

THREE. I know I said there would only be two, but sue me - there's a third. This goes along the same line as the first two in that Perez doesn't know what fact checking is. I get it - he runs a gossip blog and feeds off gossip ... that's fine. I don't care if you report that Madonna had a baby if she actually didn't. What bothers me is when he reports on the news and current events - more times than not he does not seem to understand what is going on and completely misstates the situation.

This third reason finally reached a culmination yesterday when I saw a post Perez made regarding Facebook. First off, the rest of the world had the story on Sunday/Monday - so please don't make it seem like you are breaking the news on something when you know you aren't. Not only that, but Perez basically made it seem like Facebook was evil and stealing things from you. While I agree that Facebook's modified ToS were quite dangerous, Facebook wasn't stealing content from you. So shut up Perez. Please just shut up. After reading that post I went into my Reader settings and immediately deleted the feed. It had been a long time coming - and I will still see anything 'important' that Perez decides to post because people will share it, but I'm personally glad to be rid of him.

In writing this post I went to Wikipedia to do some research (and to get his real name ... and this CC-licensed picture). As I suspected Perez has a lot of lawsuits pending against him - not only for defamation of character, but also for stealing images. The wiki page is here. But it seems that not only does Mario know nothing about current events, he doesn't quite understand copyright law either. While I'm sure his lawyers could make a great case that his stolen images fall under the category that he is using them to achieve humor or satire ... I'm not sure how it would hold up that a good portion of his website (and income) is based around these images that he steals and then writes in Paint on. Stop Stealing.

I'd also like to say that PerezHilton.Com media player is the WORST media player on the web. I would compare it to my disdain for any of RealMedia's players - even though it is built in.

So that's it ... I'm over my rant, but take what I wrote into consideration. If you are a Perez reader, just pay attention and make your own judgement as to if you think this is a website you really want to be supporting. And if you are not currently a Perez reader, I wouldn't recommend starting.