Popbitch
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Popbitch is a weekly UK-based celebrity and pop music newsletter and associated website dating from the early 2000s. Much of the material for the newsletter comes from the Popbitch message boards, frequented by music industry insiders, gossips and the casually interested. The board has at various times been credited for celebrity rumours (both false and true) appearing in the press, and the invention and usage of many phrases.
History
The website was the first of a slew of satirical and irreverent UK gossip sites that skirted the limits of defamation law. Its uncompromising ethos of cruel humour gave it a feel somewhat similar to usenet gossip newsgroups.
Popbitch was founded, is owned and run by Neil Stevenson and Camilla Wright, both journalists. Wright is employed full-time to run Popbitch. Stevenson is still a director, but his active participation in the project has diminished. [Interview - Decca Aitkenhead meets Camilla Wright], The Guardian, 6 May 2006] Originally published privately from a www.popbitch.demon.co.uk address, Popbitch has been published from popbitch.com since March 2000, and by Popdog Limited since 2001. Stevenson was employed by the British publishing house EMAP on various entertainment titles, including the celebrity magazine heat and as editor of The Face.
Editorial style of the newsletter
The newsletter is focused on a British audience and is published weekly, usually on a Thursday. It usually contains celebrity-based stories relating to music, film, television and sport, with quirky stories from other fields.
The newsletter usually contains, in order:
- a short quote from a celebrity
- several multiple-paragraph stories separated by single-sentence stories or facts
- a section entitled Big questions with one or more allegations about unidentified celebrities presented in the form of questions
- a series of webpage links entitled Things To Make You Go Hmm
- predictions of the position of some artists in the UK singles chart for the week ahead
- a Help Popbitch appeal for gossip or money or presents
- a End Bit section where contributors are thanked, usually by initials or messageboard identity
- the Old Jokes Home usually a topical joke
- and one or more web links headed Still Bored?
Famous nicknames on Popbitch
"Fat Dancer" = Robbie Williams
"Fat Tongue" = Jamie Oliver
"Thick 'n' Thin" or "Derek and Skeletor" = David Beckham and Posh Spice
"Chazbaps" = Billie Piper
"Chip Shop" = Kerry Katona
Cultural impact
Its Big questions format, using a question format to present an allegation about an unidentified celebrity, has been used by several other British newspapers in their celebrity pages. Examples include the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror's Wicked whispers on their 3am Girls page.
By 2003, Popbitch had moved from a niche-market publication to mainstream cultural knowledge, thanks in part to its role in assisting British tabloid newspapers with their entertainment coverage [link]. It achieved frequent name-checks in newspaper "diary" columns, and from celebrities as diverse as Madonna and French and Saunders.
It can claim at least a role in popularised terms such as Croydon (or council) facelift, "gak" (meaning cocaine), and "pramface" (a term of abuse contracted from "a face more suited to pushing a pram around a council estate").
It gained a reputation as being first with a number of celebrity-based stories. One poster reported David Beckham's move from Manchester United to Real Madrid at least four months before sports pages picked up on the story — then stood by the story in the face of repeated denials. It was also the first to report on the name of Madonna's son, Rocco.
Controversy and criticism
False allegations against Jeremy Clarkson, a British TV celebrity, and David Beckham, the footballer, were published on the Popbitch messageboards by its users. This led to legal action against the site's owners. The messageboard was closed and reopened with board members as editors. The editors have the power to modify or delete controversial posts, and the board also employs automatic censors that prevent the names of certain celebrities from appearing.
Popbitch's promotion of neologisms such as pramface has led to journalist Julie Burchill to heavily and repeatedly criticise Popbitch for a systemic middle class bias, doing little more than denigrating those who get "ideas above their station". Burchill is thought to be a contributor to the messageboards, under a pseudonym.
Some sections of the media, and many of the regular contributers, suggest Popbitch's glory days are over, with wider exposure leading to an influx of new people and the launch of rival messageboards [link].
External links
- [Official home page]
- [Popbitch message boards]
- : [Messages board posts deleted as "neither Pop Nor Bitch"]
- [David Rowan article on Popbitch]
- [The Times: The hot gossip websites], David Rowan, 30 November 2002
- [Writer's Choice: Camilla Wright] on 'Justice At Night' by Martha Gellhorn
- [Photo + Interview and brief bio of Camilla Wright, editor of Popbitch]
- [Hot gossip], The Guardian, 6 May, 2006 - interview and feature on Popbitch
- [Photos] from a Popbitch party on 10 May, 2006, at the Tribeca Grand hotel, New York, to celebrate Popbitch's 300th issue.
- [Bobitch], which functions as a sort of retirement home for retired popbitchers.
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