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Lots of Web sites deliver celebrity dish, but most of them don't deliver it in a terribly distinctive way.
Former Fort Wayne resident John Resig has reinvented that wheel.
Derober.com, an Internet destination that Resig devised with his brother Leo, lets surfers “derobe” paparazzi pics to reveal Photoshopped puns.
Since going live 3 1/2 months ago, Resig's site has progressed from 100 hits a week to 2,000 hits an hour (at one recent point).
Resig says the Web site is already a moneymaker, but the Los Angeles-based brothers want it to make lots more.
“Me and Leo are pretty competitive people,” he says. “If you look at the mechanics of the Web site, you'll see that we built this thing to succeed. The standard celebrity blog has an image and someone commenting on that image. We're patenting our rollover effect.”
The victory of Derober.com is one quest, but Resig has another. And it's hard to tell which one Resig is more passionate about.
Rezig ran into his idol, singer Kelly Clarkson, on a hike this summer in Temescal Canyon near Malibu, Calif. He could think of nothing to say, so he babbled about the ever-present danger of snakes on the trail.
“I couldn't have put my foot further in my mouth,” he says. “I can still taste the shoe.”
Now he wants another chance.
So he is using Derober.com to try to score another meeting with Clarkson.
Resig is soliciting suggestions on the Web site, and he hopes whatever notoriety his campaign stokes up eventually catches Clarkson's attention.
“My goal is to put her to a decision,” he says. “I want to be able to ask her out and do it like a man. Have her say ‘yes' or ‘no' and get some closure.
“I say this in all honesty,” Resig vows. “I will undo the damage.”
Here are a few pop culture tidbits I've been hoarding …
I know the blog nation's disgust over recent bikini photos of Jennifer Love Hewitt is a controversy because the Chicago Tribune told me so in a recent story.
If you think that's a controversy, then you're hard up for one. Legitimate news operations should know better. I'm not sure what the bloggers should know. But I expect a Pew Research Study to tell me any day now that 82 percent of people posting on the Web at any given moment are mocking female celebrities. And the Internet's promise will thus be fulfilled.
Speaking of healthy body concept, a casting call for the new “Star Trek” movie requested “emaciated talent” (you can read all about it in the “Star Trek” news section of ComingSoon.net). “Beam me up, Scotty - if you can get a lock on me.”
A few weeks back, a guy in Florida put his hands on a 12-foot-tall “Hannah Montana” statue for six days so he could win tickets to see Miley Cyrus, the singer/actress who plays the aforementioned character, in concert. Should we be concerned that our nation's sculptors are being commissioned to create monuments to Disney Channel characters? Should we be concerned that we are encouraging grown men to put their hands on statues of 15-year-old girls?
And I love this passage from a Washington Post article on “Reaper,” a new TV series about a bounty hunter named Sam who works for Satan: “But Sam, who's been a slacker for much of his life, realizes being the devil's bounty hunter is something he can do well.
“And there's something wonderful for anyone who can find something that they're good at,” said Mark Gordon, an executive producer. “In this case, it was foisted upon him, but it gives his life focus.”
Sure, Satan's the dark prince and all. But he's really good for my self-esteem.
