Popbitch

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 coining and subsequent usage of many phrases.

History

The website was the first of many satirical and irreverent UK gossip sites that skirted the limits of defamation law. The 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. 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.

Amongst those involved in Popbitch is Adam Curtis, writer and producer of The Power of Nightmares .

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
• an 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 (sometimes shortened to FD) = Robbie Williams (from a comment by Noel Gallagher, describing Williams as "the fat dancer from Take That")
• Fat Tongue = Jamie Oliver
• Thick 'n' Thin or Derek and Skeletor = David and Victoria Beckham
• Chazbaps = Billie Piper
• Chipshop = Kerry Katona
• Crack Tweety or P-Doh (as in short for paedophile) = Pete Doherty

Cultural impact

Its Big questions format, using a question format to present an allegation about an unidentified celebrity, had previously been used by several other British newspapers in their celebrity pages.

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 . It achieved frequent name-checks in newspaper "diary" columns, and from celebrities as diverse as Madonna and French and Saunders.

It played some part in popularising 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.

However, its role in the discussion of more mainstream news stories and social issues has been less successful; in August 2007 Condoleeza Rice (who is an occasional contributor under the pseudonym 'Bolanboogie') was overheard describing its contribution to the debate on the continuing occupation of Iraq as 'bloody piss poor'.

Much of the site's popularity was due in no small part to the work of a single contributor, who signed in as 'The Reverend Goatboy'. His sense of humour, his colourful and frequently astonishing stories of his encounters with celebrities, and his ability to make all feel welcome, have been sorely missed since his death in 2007.

Controversy and criticism

False allegations against Jeremy Clarkson, a British TV celebrity, and David Beckham 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 ability to modify or delete anything they don't like, and the board also employs automatic censors that prevent the names of certain celebrities from appearing.

Although having previously contributed to the messageboard under a pseudonym, journalist Julie Burchill eventually began to heavily and repeatedly criticise Popbitch for a systemic middle class bias, accusing it of doing little more than denigrating those who get "ideas above their station". Its 'casual' stances on racism, homophobia and sexism have also not always gone down well in some quarters in the media.

Popbitch's days as an essential webiste for those hungry for gossip are over, at least for now. Better messageboards have usurped Popbitch in terms of exclusivity (Limbo), comedic value and importance (HolyMoly). Certainly the current editors are more concerned with pursuing personal vendettas and deleting anything 'uncool' than was previously the case, and this approach has not gone down well with the old guard, who have deserted in droves, taking their gossip with them. It continues as a clearing house for music and tabloid journalists, and many stories and rumours that appear on the site later appear in other UK media outlets.

External links

• Official home page
• Popbitch message boards
• 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.