For some reason, we have started getting the trashy tabs—The Star, The Globe, The Enquirer—at my office. The headline on one read BRAD PITT EXPLODES AS JENNIFER DATES NEW GUY-PAL or something like that. I said to a co-worker, “Gee, if Brad Pitt had actually exploded, don’t you think it would have made the news? Photos of Jennifer Aniston picking bits o’ Pitt out of her hair?” Co-worker looked at me blankly and said, “I don’t think tjhat’s what they meant” (this happens to me a lot).
Anyway, does anyone read the tabs? I either find them hilarious or depressing, depending on what mood I’m in. I do love the TRAGIC LAST DAYS stories. Walter Matthau and Bob Hope have been in their TRAGIC LAST DAYS for years now, it seems. And how about the red-hot romance they’re trying to convince us is being carried on by (swallow, and put your coffee down) Jodie Foster and Russell Crowe?
Do people who read there things actually believe 'em, or is it just eye candy?
Every once in a while, they’ll base a story on real information, such as Princess Diana’s death. But mostly it’s just blather.
Their pictures all conveniently have black backgrounds, which makes editing a pic all the more easy. (Computer manipulation makes it child’s play today.) There’s one photo of an alien (ET-type) meeting some prominent politician. I’ve seen this exact photo with Bob Dole, Ross Perot, Dukakis, Mondale, Bush, Reagan, and probably a few others.
No, I don’t read them, as a matter of fact, if you search for naked brad pitt pictures on the net [not that you would] you’d find his dick is diff in each picture. Try to explain that one.
I have a friend who worked on the short-lived television version of the Weekly World News. They sat around, drank coffee and made up stories. The show was a riot, but it was a by too cynically satirical for the taste of the paper. Funding stopped, the show was cancelled.
Well, I don’t read them regularly, I’ll pick up a Weekly World News a couple times a year. And as chance would have it, I had one this past weekend for the drive to Chicago.
There were two stories that are significant in this issue.
The first is titled PAINTING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST HAS REAL BODY ODOR! This is interesting because the guy I was travelling with had made a comment about the religious visages and such people have. We wondered why none of the statues that emit perfumes or tears ever have any disgusting traits, like coughing up phlegm or maybe some pimples. So this story was very topical; maybe it was a sign from God. Yeah, right.
The second story was about a man who was preserving his wife’s dead body with kitty litter. We mentioned this story to elelle and showed her the article. It turns out she actually knows the man whose photo appears in the article. Oddly enough, he’s appeared in another story in this tabloid as a guy whose penis implant could open automatic garage doors.
re: Unca’s post: I have a page torn from Weekly World News on my fridge. “How to stop a demon from taking over your body,” complete with the top five signs of possession. You never know when you’ll need that kind of information, and I want it at the ready.
Weekly World News is a comic book-it’s TRYING to be funny. That’s the one with AMAZING BAT-BOY, ALIEN ENDORSES CLINTON, JFK VISITS JACKIE’S GRAVE. No one belives those, they’re not meant to be “real” stories. I have bought the WWN on occasion, just because it’s such a hoot.
But the Star, Enquirer and Globe put themselves forth as real newspapers, and indeed they do sometimes have “real” stories, like Clinton’s weeping bimbos, some O.J. scoops, Matthew Perry’s diet woes. It’s just the whole gestalt of those papers that either gets me down or amuses me; they seem to be aimed at stay-at-home women in hair curlers who watch Ricki Lake and have nothing more on their minds than whether or not Elizabeth Hurley and Hugh Grant are breaking up. It’s just so, so . . . SQUALID. The journalistic equivalent of soap operas, Harlequin Romances and those little dolls with hoop skirts that cover extra toilet-paper rolls.
I used to read them all the time. They used to crack me up. Now, with all the lawsuits, they are not printing the fun Madonna-grows-a-penis type stories anymore.
I guess I’ll have to get my entertainment from wild ass internet stories from now on.
Yea, they’re trying to be funny, but as a resident of East Bumfuck, I’m here to tell you there are a LOT of people who don’t get out much. And those people believe in Bat-Boy, and all his WWN friends. And those people breed. Oy. The problems with the public school system suddenly became very clear.
What a coincidence you start this thread today.
I never ever read those papers, but I stopped at a conv. store this morning on the way to work, and as I was walking to the counter the headline on The Weekly World News caught my eye and made me snicker-
“SATAN ESCAPES FROM HELL-Mexican oil workers unleash the beast” or something like that. With a picture of a dust cloud resembling a monstrous face.
Suddenly, I imagined litle yellow rods stuck in the ground reading “Before digging here, call 1-800-VATICAN” or “Warning: Do Not Dig. Hell Pipeline”
I believe the alien has thrown in with Bush. My dad has that issue of WWN (he buys 'em for the crosswords, or so he claims) so I’ll check it out next time I visit him.
I admit it: I suscribe to the Star! And it’s just what you said in the OP, Eve, it’s just for eye candy. I suscribe to a lot of magazines (mostly news-type) and I just want something that’s fun to read. I don’t take them seriously, of course, but on some days I want to read Bigfoot’s diet tips and not what’s really on the news (that can be too depressing!). So mostly it’s just to help me get away from it all.
A side note:I was reading one of the really cheesy (not that that’s a bad thing) type of the tabs and the headline screamed, “The world will end next week!”. I wondered how they’d get out of THAT one so I waited a week. The new headline said, “Your prayers helped save the world!” The story went on to say that enough people prayed, God listened, and that’s why we are here today. :rolleyes:
So those papers are out there because people like me read them.
Eve, I find it hard to believe you’ve ever been exposed to these. I suppose next you’ll be telling us you had an octopus made out of yarn sitting in the middle of your bed when you were a kid. Ha! Like you know anything about tacky.
