The Puffington Host | The New Republic | Ariana is a media entrepreneur
The Puffington Host | The New Republic: "06/01/2009 - 2:00pm EDT | teppy (user comment)
The politics of PuffHo is secondary to the celebrity appeal: it has much more in common with the old 'Entertainment Tonight' fluff TV show than with TNR or The Nation. Arianna's not really a political activist; she's a media entrepreneur. Her political stands are just publicity vehicles for her core product, which is The Arianna Persona. [insert white space here] The reason that her latest product marketing campaign has succeeded so brilliantly is that it fuses, in almost ideal form, the two forces that drive a large part of consumer traffic in online media: celebrity gossip + ideological tribalism. Arianna understood, as Jan Wenner did with Rolling Stone and maybe JFK Jr did with his 1990s ... view full comment
The politics of PuffHo is secondary to the celebrity appeal: it has much more in common with the old 'Entertainment Tonight' fluff TV show than with TNR or The Nation. Arianna's not really a political activist; she's a media entrepreneur. Her political stands are just publicity vehicles for her core product, which is The Arianna Persona. [insert white space here] The reason that her latest product marketing campaign has succeeded so brilliantly is that it fuses, in almost ideal form, the two forces that drive a large part of consumer traffic in online media: celebrity gossip + ideological tribalism. Arianna understood, as Jan Wenner did with Rolling Stone and maybe JFK Jr did with his 1990s-era celeb gossip + politics magazine, 'George', that the best way to bring liberal politics to a mass audience is to make it cool, ie, use liberal entertainment industry airheads as your prism for lite, snark-filled, hip commentary.
The politics of PuffHo is secondary to the celebrity appeal: it has much more in common with the old 'Entertainment Tonight' fluff TV show than with TNR or The Nation. Arianna's not really a political activist; she's a media entrepreneur. Her political stands are just publicity vehicles for her core product, which is The Arianna Persona. [insert white space here] The reason that her latest product marketing campaign has succeeded so brilliantly is that it fuses, in almost ideal form, the two forces that drive a large part of consumer traffic in online media: celebrity gossip + ideological tribalism. Arianna understood, as Jan Wenner did with Rolling Stone and maybe JFK Jr did with his 1990s ... view full comment
The politics of PuffHo is secondary to the celebrity appeal: it has much more in common with the old 'Entertainment Tonight' fluff TV show than with TNR or The Nation. Arianna's not really a political activist; she's a media entrepreneur. Her political stands are just publicity vehicles for her core product, which is The Arianna Persona. [insert white space here] The reason that her latest product marketing campaign has succeeded so brilliantly is that it fuses, in almost ideal form, the two forces that drive a large part of consumer traffic in online media: celebrity gossip + ideological tribalism. Arianna understood, as Jan Wenner did with Rolling Stone and maybe JFK Jr did with his 1990s-era celeb gossip + politics magazine, 'George', that the best way to bring liberal politics to a mass audience is to make it cool, ie, use liberal entertainment industry airheads as your prism for lite, snark-filled, hip commentary.
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