Creating Drama

If there has ever been a celebrity that has been able to get people talking, either good or bad, constantly, that person would be Heidi Montag. Heidi, who is attached at the hip to her husband, Spencer Pratt, is better known as Speidi. More recently, Montag has been in the press regarding her multiple surgeries. So as not to outdo herself, she is in the press once again for another reason: the state of her marriage. Today, reports about the state of Heidi and Spencer's marriage went out, but only to relieve and quelch that news hours later by claiming it was a false rumor. Heidi and Spencer married last year to the horror and delight of millions of viewers in the public. Now with the media constantly on their tails, we are bombarded with news regarding these two seemingly talent-less celebrities as they galavant around Hollywood looking to get more and more press.

We watched as Heidi "accidentally" released her amateur music video for her unreleased music single: Higher. The video was ridiculous, silly, and clearly more of an advertisement for her physique rather than her music ability. However, what made the whole thing genius was that it got us watching and talking about her. Granted, what most were saying was not very nice, but the amount of hits the video first received after the "leak" were something. It even fueled a series of parody videos on youtube, which helped continue the discourse on Heidi Montag's ridiculousness even further. Spencer and Heidi also know how to play into current events to keep the press talking. During the summer, when everyone was worried about Swine Flu, they both jumped on the band wagon and made sure to be photographed with their face masks on, as they travelled through a Mexican airport. She and her husband have truly mastered the art of the press and getting it to work for them. After all, here I am, writing multiple blog posts about her, dedicating my time to comment on her life. What does that prove?

Montag, and her husband (and now ex-manager) know that any press is better than none. Every so often a new sensational story about Heidi and Spencer is in the press. This keeps us, the public, constantly aware of their presence. They capture an audience by constantly creating drama, and playing into scandalous stories and drama to keep us engaged in their lives. Heidi and her husband (more affectionately known as Speidi) have been effective in creating a different kind of fan. Speidi have, through their constant presence in the media doing ridiculous, astonishing, and confusing things, created a crop of fans unlike those we have studied thus far in class. No one actually likes Montag and Pratt. These fans, like myself, hate Montag and Pratt, and yet we feel a need to learn about their personal lives. Maybe people who hate Heidi and Spencer should just be called haters? What do we get out of this disgust? What is our true purpose in following the lives of Heidi and Spencer? Heidi and Spencer are exactly what I do not want to be, so perhaps my fandom serves as a point of comparison: NEVER BE LIKE THEM!!!!!