I imagine it’s been a crazy week for those involved in Popbitch. This week, there has been a very high-profile football player who has been very annoyed at rumours about his life circulating around the internet. The Times of London reflects on this today [registration required], and expands the case to look at the intrinsically ‘rumour-mongering’ nature of the internet:

“It is not just celebrities who keep falling victim to the gossip websites. From chief executives to Hollywood directors, the battle is on to retain some control of the web’s 24-hour information barrage and, if possible, take advantage of it. One false rumour on a bulletin board or in an e-mail can travel around the world within seconds, and no matter how firmly the claims are denied a corporation’s reputation can suffer from a few keystrokes.”

Some words of consolation for the popbitches:

“It is a point where our old models must be discarded and a new reality rules. As we move closer to this point, it will loom vaster and vaster over human affairs till the notion becomes a commonplace. Yet when it finally happens it may still be a great surprise and a greater unknown.”

Vernor Vinge, The Singularity

And, on the other hand…

“Everybody’s looking for the
big surprise

But nobody will notice when it
does arrive”

“Coming in from the cold”, The Delgados

I think we’ve hit the gossip singularity where almost anything you can think about someone in a position of celebrity will get reported somewhere, and what’s more, it’s no bad thing.

The aftershocks of the death of deference experienced through the satire boom of the early 60’s have bounced off the lower strata of the 7-layer-model and travelled back to smack the new establishment upside their giant, 16-by-9 heads.

The “24-hour information barrage” demands that everyone’s an editor, and we decide what entertains us, and what we think is true – together. The flipslide of the blogcirclejerk is that we factcheck [each other’s] asses.

Fast, cheap and out-of-control, we’ve reached the gossip singularity. The “new reality” of the network, that is already demystifying and destroying celebrity might yet regulate the hubris of both the financial markets and politics.

Newsbitch, anyone?