Back to Basics

Tabloids are our original prime source of all things celebrity. They are the "Momma Bear," the original magazine, the first entertainment news show, and twitter update. Of course they take a little longer than today's 5 second tweet, but if you want the news, you'll wait for the news.Tabloids have been around for decades and they've made an impact world-wide. Tabloids were originally just smaller newspapers having to do with the trendier topics of the day. While today's newspaper still have their gossip sections, tabloids have really developed into their own genre. In order to understand the various media sources we use today, I think it's important to get back to the basics and really understand where celebrity gossip got its start. And now we have something to blame our celebrity obsessions on. We can't help ourselves, it's born and bred into us! Aren't you glad to get that out of your system? Anyway...back to tabloids. The website How Stuff Works does a really good job of tracing the roots of tabloids and how they've changed. Beginning during the era of Yellow Journalism, tabloids have their roots in the papers that wrote made-up stories and made gross exaggerations in the stories of the day, which actually sounds a lot like today's tabloids. Over the years, tabloids have developed into a more agressive form of their original self. They will usually say anything to grab the reader's attention as they pass through the check-out line at the grocery store. And it pretty much always works. They get my attention every single time. Tabloids are really where all our obsessions began. I think having this information will make it easier to understand the popularity of magazines and entertainment news shows. It's going to be fascinating! I promise!

Fascinated,

Caity