Blogs have become cultural beacons, sculpting public opinion and the whole of the landscape. I have come to love the blogosphere. What’s not to love? Quick, easy, hilarious rants on current events, news, celebrity, anything and everything. It makes me laugh. It makes us all laugh. I’m a big fan, yet it drives me nuts when people put a greater emphasis on being funny rather than thoughtful. And the funnies are getting all of the credit.

Take Perez Hilton, self proclaimed Queen of all Media: his blog has made him rich and famous. There’s even a TV version of his “work” on VH1. He is a well-regarded, highly-quoted source regularly featured in other media. Why? Because he concocts funny word mashups and indiscriminately draws cocaine debris under the nostrils of celebrities, celebutants and celebutards? I laugh. But is it intelligent or thoughtful?

Not a whiff of either.

His counterparts are no exception. D-Listed, Pink is the New Blog, What Would Tyler Durden Do? –examples of cheap and hysterical hilarity, a lot of vulgarities and bathroom humor about stars and starlets…the writers are very funny, but do they have the chops to become real comedic writers with a day-to-day gig? Most of the humor is easy to come by (raunchy sex jokes that occur to the average 12-year-old boy); these bloggers are brave enough to boldly voice their inner tween. Where the rest of us would blush at the thought of quipping like that with even our closest and dearest, they in fact take the, yep you guessed it, plunger.

The newsiest is The Huffington Post, a digital version of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. The content is there, the points are on and the contributing writers are some of the biggest uh names in the game (is it bad to shamefully plug myself in my own blog?), but it is not meant to serve as primary news source but more a way to buttress your information on an hourly basis. It says so up there in the fine print.

Wonkette.com, a famous offering about D.C. gossip, honestly describes itself as a, “blend of gossip, satire and things the author makes up.” Similarly, its parent, Gawker, is known for the same in a New York market. The problem is, people look to these sites as honest news sources instead of ha-ha jabs at anything plus everything.

And everyone is guilty these days. We’re all adapting blog speak (see Diablo Cody please) and abbreviated language that was once reserved for quickly jotting down messages via IM has made its way into the daily vernacular.

Remember Cingular’s enormously popular ad? The mom reprimands the daughter for texting too much. The daughter responds in text / IM code. It was only funny because we all got it. OMG people, WTF is going on?

Being tuned in does not make any of us educated while simple-minded and raunchy cynicism doe not make you a comedian and maintaining a blog does not make you a writer… In the end we are reading bloggers.

Oh yeah, and the most important point of today’s rant is this: Abbreviating words doesn’t make you original, just kind of annoying, except when it comes to me, obv. Duh.

Like, gee. Emily Gould’s much-maligned cover story in this week’s Times Sunday Magazine may not win the Gray Lady awards but it did garner what any self-respecting newspaper wants in the age of severely diverted eyeballs. Attention. Lots of attention. The article became a sensation and it—

Wait! What do you mean? No, trust me, it WAS a big deal. Hold on, I’ll prove it. Let’s just click over to the Times site..and ….

See, look. Most e-mailed stories of the past week. And that “Exposed” piece is right —-gee. No, it’s here somewhere. Has to be. Where is it?

Well holy smokes. Huh. I guess Times readers really didn’t think Emily Gould was such an important person. Instead they bit on the typical lineup of politics, faux trends, and self-help that pretends it isn’t. That’s what they e-mailed to their unenlightened, Post-reading family, at least.

But, wait, there’s “Exposed” – gosh, yay! I found it! Heading the week’s list of “Most Blogged” articles! See: it is relevant! Told you. A blogger’s bloggy confessional about blogging and its bloggy complications turned out to be catnip for other bloggers who like blogging about blogs! Let’s see here, who blogged about this bloggy article . . . why, Romenesko! And MediaBistro! Jezebel and Jossip! And the granddaddy of ‘em all: Gawker! Which used to employ Gould! Just like MediaBistro does now! And so on. And so forth.

Let me take a look at that Gawker post . . . that’s–eleven thousand views! Wow, like, um, not very many. A lot for Gawker, I am sure. But compare that number to the number who read, for instance, whatever watered-down nonsense was on the cover of the Parade Sunday insert this week.

Hint: it’s not even close. Like, at all.

So what does that say, kids? Maybe that the same few thousand people who read the same incestuous pack of media blogs were inordinately interested in La Gould, even while deriding her piece, and, more tellingly, even as most of The New York Times readership shrugged and went on with the crossword. And these are Times readers! The elite of elites, who love nothing more than to gaze at New York-y media-y fluff with hearts a-flutter. And they kinda didn’t care. Even with “come hither” cover photography and the author’s appetite-whetting persona: equal parts narcissist and train wreck.

The blogosphere is vibrant and vital, despite what the many detractors say out loud. That said, when it is its own subject one notices just how insular a community it is. Emily Gould is a very big name to only very few. And those people debated her article back and forth. And knew about it days before the Times published. And felt impugned and delighted and irritated and important because it was about them as much as it was about Emily. And then . . . what? It exploded like a neutron bomb in its little corner of our culture and, thanks to the electronic version going up early, was yesterday’s news three days before yesterday.

(Literally.)

This was the year “Gossip Girl” caught fire in New York and among its chattering bloggy/media classes. To read about the show in this sleep-filled city is to think you’ve witnessed the birth of a kind of phenomenon. Except that the two thousand people whispering breathlessly about each episode on blogs are also the only two thousand people watching it on their hi-defs. The show gets absolutely no ratings (it’s “OMFG, not that great,” said EW this week). And yep, no one in Topeka gives a dink. This isn’t “Seinfeld” or “Sex City” or some other quote unquote New York show that appeals to our coastal vanity while generating a huge audience. It’s not even “Mad Men,” for Chrissakes. It’s big-B Buzz doing little-b business. The lesson (this is a blog, so a lesson is forthcoming) is not so different from the Sunday magazine’s. Self absorption, no matter the medium, is only as magnetic as self.

I feel like I have not quite made my point. Wait…for…it…

Damn it, Emily! You loser.

[Check out “2011” now on Amazon via www.yeahwhatever.com. Like for sure…]

As the CEO of a PR agency, I can’t even tell you how many potential clients ask “Do I really need PR?” Usually I just answer with a simple and slightly aggravated “Why Yes!” Today, however, I will answer with an example of what a smart, finely crafted and well-timed PR campaign (with strategy) can do.

The past few months we have seen historically vilified Microsoft attempt to take the current underdog, Yahoo, over with a slow hand. During the war Microsoft was seen as a Goliath, a heartless corporation out to bully Yahoo, a company determined to stand on its own.

Here’s the thing, PR frames reality. When the deal fell apart, Microsoft was smart and engaged the press early. Their PR team reached out and massaged reporters, putting the blame squarely on Yahoo.

The press painted a picture that made Microsoft seem reasonable and open to negotiations. Microsoft’s flexibility was met by an unwillingness on the part of Yahoo to negotiate or cooperate. The reason the deal fell apart had nothing to do with the suddenly valiant Microsoft; it fell apart because Yahoo was unreasonable.

While talking to the press Microsoft might have mentioned –naturally, off the record –that when you’re dealing with the takeover of a publicly traded company there are certain rules that each company must follow.

PR is more than spin. In case I forgot to mention this (wink plus wink), when done right, PR frames reality. The reality here is that the Yahoo board put the best interest of their shareholders aside.

And there are some real legal implications here. Right or wrong, the perception exists that the Yahoo board failed in their responsibility to their shareholders. When shareholders lose faith, stock price goes down. When stock price goes down, Yahoo will not be able to stand against Google. When that happens…well…there won’t be anyone left to go Yahoo! (one place where Yahoo!’s exclamation point works!)

People still may not like Microsoft (here’s a clip of Bill Gates taking a bullet to the dome in the South Park movie), but MS has framed reality to their benefit with some smart PR. Unlike Yahoo, Microsoft was out there–immediately. Yahoo’s CEO did not make statements or address the press until days after Microsoft’s well-timed and brilliant PR-strophe hit. By the time Yahoo hit the streets, people weren’t buying their story – the minds of the public were already made up.

Yes, Yahoo stressed their willingness to negotiate. They also said they were fulfilling their obligations to their shareholders. But alas, it was too late. The reality was already framed and the story already set.

Yahoo’s delay invited enormous share holder Carl Icahn in there panting and aiming to launch a proxy fight to remove the current Yahoo board. His argument? Same as Microsoft’s. There’s a good shot Yahoo will win over Icahn, but the battle to keep him away will cost Yahoo time and money, and time and money, and maybe even a little more time and money.

So you have to ask yourself, even if Yahoo did spurn Microsoft, had they controlled the story would Icahn have this window of opportunity? I don’t THINK so. All he is doing is taking advantage of the perception that Yahoo’s board is irresponsible – the perception Microsoft’s very own PR team put out there.

Lesson is, you need PR and you better be deft. The effect PR has goes way beyond people liking you, your product or your company. Always be the first person/company/whatever talking to the press. If it’s not you it’s your competition. Beat them to the punch; put your brand, your spin and your ideas out there.

And be smart about too, will ya?

In “Exit Ghost,” Philip Roth’s alter ego Nathan Zuckerman informs a young writer: “No one reads anyone when you think about it.” It’s a good line but not true. Steve Jobs was a fool to emote how people have no patience for books. I get 100 letters a month from people taking something from what I write. People would read even more if publishers were even a tiny bit more forward-thinking.

In my book “Punk Marketing” one particular thought appears incessantly: don’t do what you’re doing because it’s the way it’s been done forever. Publishing industry needs that advice in an overt way.

Here’s my story:

I’m a writer - outside of my work running RLM PR, the aptly-named 19 year old public relations firm that I’m damn proud of. Anyway, in the new one titled “2011” there are 77 funny and non-methodical chapters where I pour my heart out about our own outlandish future. To witness the future is to rethink the past and learn something from it. That’s what I’m doing.

I am seriously down on the publishing world (even though I do like McGraw-Hill, I’m still down on it). It’s starting to make little sense why I would write something that while widely read could be given out in a “cleverer” format. Doing a book with a major corporation just starts to seem…odd, given the proclivities in which I do everything else now. With that far-reaching statement, and by means of explaining my thought process, here is why publishing, as the kids say, needs to man up and change itself quickly. Here are some questions I hope will make you go, “I see.”

1. Who’s in charge here? How can a 22-year-old editor bid on a book? What does a post-graduate $32,000-a-year fresh-out know what will hit with the public? Why does this frequently appear to be a case of the nuthouse leaving the inmates to decide! People in publishing (except those that are up top and doing well) are not really supervised, but there are tons a folks who say, “I have to make sure they are in charge of these decisions.” Adorable when they were six and playing with the Easy Bake Oven.

2. How do you expect people to pay 25 dollars for a book!? It’s ridiculous. Economics of publishing need to be studied. And no, “Do paperbacks” is not the answer because Amazon doesn’t feature them. I watch publishers skimp on what’s important—like Web destinations for books —and outsource a lot to India and cheap-labor countries. This is all in the name of corporate salvation. I guess.

3. The editing is done exactly how far in advance? If I write a book that is to come out in say December of 08– they have to have it in February. Why? ‘Cause they have a “schedule to follow,” but it would seem with digital technology you should be able to write right up to the deadline (like we do online).

4. Marketing is something that happens when? You probably know this but publishers basically print and cross their fingers–unless your name is Grisham, King, or Winfrey. But to market them is the REAL waste of money… their fans will find their books like a stampede. It’s obvious that publishers publish way too many books, and have no faith in anything. They just hope something will stick. It’s all teflon!

5. You give nothing away? Every now and then a maker of books announces “Here’s a chapter” gratis, or introduces a limited time free download for online consumption … The limited part is what makes people go “how old-fashioned.” GIVE IT AWAY NOW. (And if I were allowed, you’d get free chapters all the time, but alas I’m not!) My advice is to force those boatloads of readers who may not even know they are readers to think, “That’s something I got to get.” Witness the music business’s sudden realization that yeah they can’t hold onto content anymore. Labels will try anything to get folks hooked on an artist they’re trying to break, but except for some random (House) gimmicks like announcing to the media that last week something was available for free and lookie lookie, we tried something “cool,” book people are afraid to let anything digitized get out there and fight the concept tooth plus nail.

6. Bookstore chains are difficult corporations? Let’s be real. Borders, Amazon, Barnes & Noble are just as scared about the economy as publishers are. So I say work with the little stores just as hard as you used to with the biggies. Every little venue needs handholding and we authors will help get the word out, but everyone in pub is so afraid to say anything that might be construed as “insulting.” At Harper-Collins I wanted to offer free marketing advice to stores who bought, “Punk Marketing.” And as a marketer I’m pretty damn expensive. Some consultant there said, “We can’t do that—someone will think it’s demeaning.” What? Grow up. No one cares about being insulted—they care about getting something for free. See 5.

7. Why is everyone so afraid to make waves? Isn’t that the only way to rise above the noise! Retail seems to be dying—and yet the stores scare publishers in ways that shake my head involuntarily. I’ve done books with most of the big publishers, and no one ever said to Barnes & Noble: “We want placement, what’s it going to take to get it? This book is important!” I know that BN is LOOKING for ballishness. They want publishers to get behind authors. Especially those who can promote themselves with some help. Honestly, those big corporate publishing behemoths have power, but don’t use it. Gosh. As my 9th grade teacher once told me: “Prove you are the one who can take the ball and run with it.” Publishers need to take live ones - authors with big mouths - and make them stand out as new discoveries BEFORE they are already discovered.

8. You won’t publish me even if I’m the next Tolstoy unless I have a platform of my own? Yeah I get it. I’m all about the podcasts, the blogs, the articles, the mini-tours, the loud hawking, what is dubbed “relentless” push for my product…. In 2002 I got myself booked with the then-adorable Katie Couric on Today Show for “trendSpotting” and I told the people at Penguin-Putnam who thought I was kidding (”Well, let’s see”) —and when I was scheduled they didn’t bother to alert sales force, stores, or anyone. So 20 million watched me cavorting with that perky thing, and a dozen books were in stores. Publishers don’t know how to sell, that’s the fact. They wait. Very Darwinian. If something takes off THEN they start pumping out the marketing.

9. What about the number of books? Publishers will have to “break” artists like the music biz does and don’t just publish whatever sounds good … Save your money and invest in a few key artists. A final thought here: Since so many people (not me, I say with my arms folded) write books so they can buy thousands to give to prospects or customers, let’s not allow them into mainstream channels any longer. You guys stick with the professional writers.

10. The agents are working for exactly whom? Lit agents I’ve met, with few exceptions, though none I can think of as I type, are beyond frightened of pissing off the editors, so they won’t fight like Hollywood agents will for the clients. They say things like, “Well yes, it’s cheap money, kiddo, but think of it as an annuity.” Or, “I wish I could do more but they’ll never budge” or this one (breathe deeply, Richard): “You’re lucky to get it.” The lawyer I use in La La Land would teach those foohs mottos like: “We’ll cut them off at the knees—since gees they act like they deserve less of one.”

11. What’s with all the titles? Who’s the editor, who’s the president, who’s the publisher, who’s the director …? And who’s the marketing director of strategic planning? The world’ most successful businesses don’t sit around having meetings all day - Google? - and golly, turf wars are so 90’s! Publishing geeks seem so afraid to step on one another’s toes. “Let’s have a meeting to see how X feels about it.” Garrrrrh! All that endless chitchats around oak tables. I say let’s fan out, make trouble, be disruptive, start our own religion … anything,. Plan less — do more. Rise up. Be aggressive. As Fred Trump once said, “No one gets any work done in the office.”

12. Small publishers? Nah, don’t think so. I found they were just as cheap-headed as their older brother, and only provided support when the author paid his own way. Seems like the small publisher is a misnomer–like indie film. Neither exists except as marketing gimmick. In the long run, small comes knocking with finger-in-air offers like the Midwest publisher who nervily said “Here’s five grand” advance for a book about the porn industry’s history of influencing business decisions thru history… (Where’s Judith Regan when I need her!!!)

13. Finally, and for the good of the readers, shouldn’t everything be made available online? We’re inundated with material to read online and that takes our attention. Having a book in hand – even on the excellent Kindle, which is really fun—isn’t the most efficient way to digest someone’s work. Like when I read a book offline and want to share a passage with a friend, I have to type it out, yeah! That’s almost as frustrating as not being able to send my DVR moments to pals who absolutely need to see that sucky ad I witnessed.
Whatever comes of publishing—chapters online via micropayments, baby—I can look backwards and remember with glee when my first representation, “Native’s Guide to New York.” came out 19 years ago and that arrogant publisher sat me down and said to his staff of onlookers: “Let’s hire a PR person and get this crazed nonstop talker into as many outlets as we can get him to do before he’s worn-out!”

Those were the days, my friend, hoped they’d never end. They did. I want them back.

[Stay around Laermer.com for the second part of this 3-part essay titled, “Whither Product?”]

The Masters golf tournament opened Thursday. It is, in some ways, like Passover. It falls sometime in April, matters a great deal to a small segment of the population, and everyone else kind of looks up and thinks, “Oh, right, it’s probably time to take off the snow tires.”

But in recent years The Masters has been a somewhat bigger blip on America’s socio-cultural calendar, and for one reason: 11 Aprils ago, a man of mixed race months out of college went out there to take on the world’s best golfers (on a course, it should be noted, that for decades hadn’t allowed black members) and coolly destroyed them. Destroyed. Them. And ever since Tiger Woods put up the biggest winning margin at one of golf’s majors in over a century on its grandest stage, the tournament and the game have never been the same. The history from there is known. Tiger became the face of the sport and its best player. There were Nike ad campaigns, higher television ratings, swarming hordes in the galleries, etc. Blah blah-de-blah.

History and greatness and underdogs-cum-superstars attract eyes.

That’s old news, and has been the case in entertainment, sports, politics, and culture for the better part of forever. In everything there’s a pecking order. Bill Clinton will always draw a bigger crowd and a higher fee than Jimmy Carter. Meanwhile, that French lady who won the Best Actress Oscar this year will be forgotten by six months after THIS year’s telecast; Lindsay Lohan, with zero awards to her name, is roughly 20,000 times more famous. Just the way it is. And we like it that way.

But what’s interesting this particular week is not The Cult of the Superstar. It’s The Cult of the Narrative. It’s often said that we build up our heroes only to tear them down. And to justify the claim we hold up to the examples of Britney Spears and Eliot Spitzer and all the rest. But I think it’s only part of the story. It isn’t the downfall we crave - it’s the Grand Story. We are a culture of Fabulists and Fictionalists and Dreamers and Absolutists. Our mediasphere behaves accordingly. Sure, sometimes the Grand Story is a bit more tangled and harder to pinpoint (what is it, for instance, we eventually want Hillary to represent in the end, win or lose?), but most of the time we get a handle on it early and fit the facts to it.

Tiger Woods has failed to win four of the past five Masters tournaments. This, of course, does nothing to diminish his deserved status as the world’s best at what he does. But his superstar status doesn’t alone quite explain why 90% of the coverage and attention is devoted to him again this year. Yes, we get it, he has an exponentially better chance to win than any other single golfer, but somehow Las Vegas puts him “only” at about even odds to take the thing. Surely there must be some worthy stories out there among the dozens and dozens in the field?

In 2007, an unknown named Zach Johnson came from nowhere to win the thing. Catnip for a country that loves an underdog, right? Well, 12 months later, I think even Zach Johnson’s family is probably more interested in The Grand Tiger Narrative than they are in young Zach’s chances to repeat. And it’s because we like big, shiny, lasting arcs that we can take with us from one season to the next.

We like the Narrative. We like curling up and having ESPN (or Access Hollywood, MSNBC, you choose) filter out all those annoying subplots and details, the Zach Johnsons and the Marion Cotillards.

It’s the Narrative that is at work this weekend in Augusta, not the Known Superstar. And there aren’t many nuanced alternatives. Downfall is one, like what we’ve chosen for Britney. Glory is another, and it is Tiger’s at our behest. Some we build to tear down. But some we build to keep building and building and building.

We all know the saying keep your friends close and your enemies closer. For celebrities and the press, it’s more cardinal law than old saw. There ain’t much choice.

But in the TMZ Era – which makes the US Weekly Era years back seem like a Norman Rockwell portrait of tranquility –savvy celebs are more creative in how they manage that schizoid relationship.

Today’s lesson, girls and boys and trannies, is the fake wedding.

George Clooney ambled by Today Show yesterday to promote his new movie, the one about leather. While talking shop with Meredith V, Clooney admitted gloriously loving all of the false rumors and media fodder. His favorite rumor? False one about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were slated to marry at his house a couple of years ago.

In order to really bring the story to life, Clooney ordered tables and chairs to be placed in his backyard. Oh, that guy! The paparassholes, along with the rest of the world except me, waited with baited breath to catch a glimpse, even a peak at the couple. The wedding never happened but the story sure did.

Just this past week nearly every tabloid EVER and those in the seemingly bored bloggy-sphere tattled about Brangelina having tied the knot in New Orleans. According to Star’s site, “Sources in a position to have information regarding a secret wedding ceremony between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had confirmed to Star that the couple married in the French Quarter Wedding Chapel on Saturday, March 29.”

Pitt’s publicist played on the rumors claiming she had “no idea” as to whether or not the story was actually true. Hmmmm, likely. Of course, Star along with every other weekly, gossip show and online mag had to retract the story. Double the coverage! (Let me put this into context, those sites got more hits from this story than Amy Winehouse from a crack pipe. That’s a lotta hits.) Another wedding is set to launch, rather is scheduled for TODAY, and this time it’s Jay-Z and

Beyonce—both of whom have launches currently occurring that need heat behind ‘em. Perez Hilton suspects they chose April 4^th because they are both born on the fourth day of their respective months – put it together, you get 4/4. I know…sham or leaked plan or just way too much thought for two future Trivial Pursuit answers…we shall need to wait and see. And finally, while A-listers like Brangelina and Jay-B lead the pack, the rest of Hollywood isn’t too far behind. Heard of a promise ring? Young Hollywood is so crazy for these. They are tokens of love to put Eliot Spitzer’s hooker-tab to shame. Celebrities wave to the paps, new bling ablaze and gee is it an engagement or a marriage or a baby or whah? Everyone wins here. We’re entertained, they’re famous and the media makes money. It’s fun, right. And ridiculous. What more can America in its Mediocre Period want?