Perez Hilton

Over the past few years, the news has been inundated with tragic stories of teens and cyberbullying. There were the stories of Phoebe Prince and Megan Meier, who after being tormented via social media sites and texting, resorted to suicide. The advent of formspring isn’t alleviating the now all-too-common cruelty of bullying, either. It seems that adults look at our generation and wonder if our obsession with vampires, warewolves and other beasts is actually due to a feeling of kinship.

There are probably a lot of causes for the advent of cyberbullying, which I’ve ruminated on before. But one cause I hadn’t really given much thought to before was the influence of a bullying media, specifically thanks to stimulating reality shows like the Real Housewives and nasty bloggers like Perez Hilton.

This point was made especially clear to me when it was announced a little while ago that Perez is writing a children’s book about acceptance. My twitter feed, once fed this news tidbit, went, to put it mildly, berserk. Isn’t this the blogger who attacked everybody – insulting everything from their cellulite to their fashion choices? everybody wondered. In fact, many people began to attack him for daring to write a book so seeped in hypocrisy.

Which is when I began to feel like something wasn’t quite right.

Yes, Perez Hilton was a bully for a really long time. He did attack celebrities. He drew disgusting pictures over their photographs and attacked their looks and talent and life choices, justifying that they deserved it because they chose to enter a public profession and that without him, without publicity, they would be nothing. And – though I won’t go into the sickness of this right now – millions of people followed him for that very reason. They ate up what really was inexcusable bullying on a daily – often hourly – basis, considering it a fun past time. In fact, in 2008, Perez Hilton was the fourth most visited website by all college-aged girls, right behind Facebook, YouTube and Google.

But then something kind of cool happened. Perez had an epiphany and apologized for his wrong-doing and vowed to change his lifestyle and blog to be more positive. Here’s the proof of said epiphany:

And now he’s trying to live up to it, by changing his blog (though he’s almost definitely losing profits and visitors because of it -a problem in and of itself) and now, by writing a children’t book about acceptance. Progress, right? Something to applaud, right?

Wrong, apparently, since many people can’t let the fact that he was once a bully go. So many people keep calling him a hypocrite and won’t let him forget that he once made people miserable.

Now, I know how hard it is to forgive a bully firsthand. A member of my immediate family was bullied for their entire childhood and I saw how it forever changed that person, causing them unimaginable amounts of pain. Bullying is sick and disgusting and I am a champion for its demise as much as anybody else.

But here’s what I worry about. I worry about kids who are bullies themselves watching the way Perez Hilton is being treated as he’s trying to change his ways – the way our society will only let him be a bully (once a bully, always a bully, they seem to say) even when he realizes what he did was wrong and wants to change. That kid is going to watch this happen, and think to themself, “Well, I guess there’s no point in changing if everybody is going to think of me this way forever, anyway.”

Especially considering the teen suicides that have been publicized over the past few years due to bullying, every time a public bully decides to change his way we have to celebrate it. In order to end bullying, we can’t just condemn every bully out there and tell them that they are simply horrible people that can’t be helped. We have to be forgiving. We have to show them how and why their former ways were wrong and that they have the capacity to be a better person, that EVERYBODY does.

As feminists, we may dislike Perez Hilton, and for a solid reason. But by condemning him to the title of bully forever and mocking him for trying to change, we are doing so much more damage than we are good.

I’m sure a lot of you have seen at least one “It Gets Better” video. If you haven’t, it’s basically a project initiated to show LGBT youth that are struggling with their sexuality, and can’t imagine a future as an openly gay adult, especially in the face of bullying. A bunch of celebrities have pitched in speaking from the perspectives of allies and LGBT adults. It’s an awesome project, and Jezebel recently gathered what they think are the top 15 videos. Here are a few of my faves:

Tim Gunn (who opens up about his own past suicide attempt)

Barack Obama (It makes me hopeful that even the President is speaking out on this)

Perez Hilton (He’s pledging to stop bullying people on his own site. While I understand people see this as hypocritical…I hope EVERY bully decides to be a hypocrite and stop bullying. I’d take hypocrites over tormentors any day).

Miley Cyrus and Perez Hilton

Last Sunday, gossip blogger Perez Hilton made the controversial decision to post a photo of Miley Cyrus exiting a car on his twitter, implying that she was not wearing underwear. Now, the internet is firing back, with claims that Perez could go to jail under child pornography charges.

Initially, when I heard about this story, I was pretty disgusted. What an idiot Perez Hilton must be, I thought to myself, so obsessed with attacking people that he doesn’t know where to draw the line. I’m not a fan of Perez or Miley – they both annoy me in general – but seriously? Posting a photo of anybody in a sexual way without their permission is just wrong. But as commenters on the blogosphere, and even Perez himself, started firing back, another problem (you know, aside from possible child pornography and borderline sexual abuse) began to arise.

Yes, Perez, and a slew of blogosphere commenters, decided to turn the issue of a grown man exploiting an underage girl into a big Miley slut-shaming fest.

Perez’s defense for his actions? Implying that Miley has no class, and therefore posting the picture was meant to teach her some. “I thought she was exiting this car in a very un-ladylike fashion,” Perez commented, defending his decision to post the picture. So, therefore, he thought it was his place to teach her a lesson about being a slut (his pet name for Miley after all is “Slutty Cyrus”) by publicly embarrassing her for what was almost definitely an accident. Because, as we all know, sluts deserve punishment – no matter how much our society pressures teen pop-stars (and teens in general) to be sexually provocative, even if their career depends on it, they MUST RESIST and if they don’t, we need to teach them a lesson.

Miley wears a unitard and forgets her pants, so therefore she deserves to be exploited. CLEARLY.

Now, I’m not saying that since girls are pressured to be sluts it’s understandable that they give into it or that it’s inevitable. It would actually be great if we could find a happy medium between our teen stars dancing on a stripper pole and saving themselves for marriage, complete with a purity ring. Why can’t our culture accept that teens can be healthy about their sexuality without being “sluts”?

But, because she is no longer Hannah Montana – read, not an innocent child – well, then she must be a slut. Because there is just no other option in the music industry, or in our society in general. And because she chose slut over child, she deserved to be exploited by Perez Hilton. As one awesome commentor on Popcrunch.com wrote, “It’s ok for the little skank to act like a sexual horny adult but as soon as she’s treated like one it’s child porn? Get real.” Another added, “Miley brought this on herself!”

Bottom line? Perez Hilton is a creep who needs to stop exploiting people – especially underage people. People need to stop blaming Miley for this and realize in general that this virgin-whore dichotomy needs to end (although would it kill Miley to wear some jeans to a performance and maybe not crouch and spread her legs? Especially at a charity concert? Maybe?)

Really, everybody should just go read a book instead of gossip blogs. Like maybe this one.

Apparently the rumors (that I never actually hard about) have been confirmed and Perez Hilton is launching an imprint with Warner Brothers “in the near future.”

Perez states, “I have an ear, which is really important in the music world — to be able to hear a hit and to be able to know who has a good song or not…I’m more than just an A&R person. I’m also a marketing person. I’m also a manager.”

There has been a lot of commentary about Perez in the feminist world lately. I guess people just noticed, oh hey he’s kind of  misogynistic in the way that he criticizes women about the way look for his living. Which obviously I can’t stand and think is wrong. But he also criticizes men. A lot. The solution I’ve come to is not necessarily misogyny…rather misanthropy. Perez hates all creatures, large and small, man and woman. 

But the thing is he did totally spot Mika and Lady Gaga way before they went mainstream (he introduced Gaga over a year ago). That’s pretty significant. And though people may call him sexist, he seems to have a lot of respect for Beth Ditto, Sia and even Tori Amos – some bitchin feminists. He also introduced me via “Music Minute” posts to the unique likes of Emiliana Torrini and Hafdis Huld…quality indie folks.

Gotta say…I’m kind of interested to see what he’s got up his sleeve. He’s obviously got an ear for some good tunes…