Defamer is a Hollywood-based gossip blog with, in its own words, “behind-the-scenes gossip that’s too juicy for the trades.” Previously a stand-alone site, Defamer has now merged with Nick Denton-owned Gawker Media, covering West Coast celebrity for the New York-headquartered blog company whose stable includes Jezebel, Gizmodo and Lifehacker, for starters.
Content is king at Defamer, and while some gossip blogs are sparse on the words (giving precedence to juicy photos), this site chooses to put its battery of writers to work crafting original reporting and commentary of a length uncommon for celebrity news sites.
The rumor mill is in high gear, too, with Defamer regularly publishing a column called Blind Items. Listing tantalizing tidbits about the famous well before they are publicized or confirmed, Defamer avoids litigation by leaving off the names so that readers can speculate themselves. For example: “This reality star got so wasted she passed out on the floor of the liquor store.”
The site regularly features original articles that fall outside of the realm of celebrity gossip but are still heavy on entertainment, weighing in on fast food atrocities, advertising oddities and tech news. Even when reporting on heavily covered news, Defamer writers tend to find new and unusual perspectives to set it apart from the post-and-run blogs.
Part of the fun is reading the user comments, which the site ensures are just as witty as the site’s writing by requiring registered users to “audition” as commenters. If your comment isn’t deemed hilarious by the Defamer crew, it doesn’t appear. The result is a slew of reader commentary that reads like a snarky stand-up routine.
In 2006, the Gawker site created controversy when it began publishing Gawker Stalker Maps, using Google Maps to feature user-submitted celebrity sightings. Celebrities such as George Clooney and others spoke out against what they believed to be an endorsement of stalking. While Defamer still features user-submitted sightings, the map is no longer part of the list.
Gawker Media makes all its content available through a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which means anyone can reproduce or use material from a Gawker site (even in mashups and parodies) as long as they display the logo and credit, and the use is not for commercial purposes.
