Pitiless in Pink

When undertaking the assignment, I wanted to avoid chat rooms, since I was uncomfortable with the idea of interacting with strangers. Instead, I decided to read a blog. I had difficulty finding one, but I finally settled upon Perez Hilton’s blog at perezhilton.com. I had heard of the blog from friends and TV shows, but I had never looked at the actual site. I went onto the blog, not knowing what to expect—I only knew that Hilton liked to write about celebrities.

I was hit with an explosion of pink when I entered Hilton’s site. Senses overwhelmed, I proceeded to read his blog. It took a while for me to adapt to Hilton’s blogging style; he liked to add pictures to his posts, often adding crude, infantile drawings onto celebrities’ faces. He was also crass in his judgment of celebrities, mocking them for their erratic behavior and their tactics to grab attention.

I thought Hilton’s judgments of celebrities were hypocritical since he had no shame in advertising his ventures on his site; for instance, in promoting his TV show, he encouraged readers to watch, claiming that they would, “love it. We know! LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.” He told readers, “You must watch!!!!” I got the impression that Hilton’s brashness and immaturity was a part of his selective self-presentation. He probably chose to highlight his immaturity because he loved attention, and he knew that he would earn attention by acting childishly. I concluded that Hilton had to be extroverted in person because being loud would allow him to bring attention to himself.

I also thought that it was ironic that Hilton felt that he was worthy enough to judge celebrities on their class, while Hilton himself was far from classy with his attention-getting ways and his vulgar jabs at celebrities. I was able to get some visual cues of Hilton because of some pictures of himself that he posted on the blog—they only confirmed my view of him. With dyed, neon-colored hair and a thin moustache, I was only further convinced of my impression that Hilton was tacky and brash.

From Hilton’s verbal and visual cues and overall presentation, I formed a negative impression. I was greatly repelled by Hilton’s constant mockery and childishness. However, even though I believed him to be extroverted, I would not be confident enough to judge Hilton on traits such as agreeableness, neuroticism, and conscientiousness. My lack of confidence in judging Hilton on a breadth of traits and my exaggerated impression of him would suggest that my impression of Hilton is in line with a hyperpersonal prediction. If I spent more time reading Hilton’s blog, I may have eventually been more confident in judging Hilton on more character traits, confirming the developmental aspect of the hyperpersonal theory. However, unfortunately for Hilton, I will be staying far away from his blog in the future.