Gossip blogs write nasty content about celebrities because it drives traffic

Evidence

Many people I talked to spoke of the downsides to micro-celebrity life; namely, that there was constant “drama.” Living a public life can be stressful and comes with a lot of gossip and intrigue, partly due to the scrutiny of blogs like Valleywag. Lacy explained: “The part that’s not fun is … the exploitive part … people know that if they write certain things about me it’ll drive a certain amount of traffic so people will write nasty things.” — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 382

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the economics of outrage/attention merchants covered in later chapters of this book and in adjacent platform-economics literature. — connects to: Silicon Valley gossip media enforced gendered, conservative moral codes on tech celebrities — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 367; Web metrics incentivized traffic and clickbait over prestige and quality

Broader Connections

• Web metrics incentivized traffic and clickbait over prestige and quality #expands (0.85)
• Silicon Valley gossip media enforced gendered, conservative moral codes on tech celebrities #exemplifies (0.80) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 367