Perez Hilton reconsidered

Pop culture authority Mark Graham uses the above photo to illustrate his view that Perez Hilton has become lazy and uninspired of late. We can't help but agree. There was a time when each photoshopped cock was placed at the precise angle near a celebrity's mouth that only one touched by the hand of God would be capable of choosing. You could feel the hours of sweat that went into making sure every drop of jizz was MSPainted on its recipient's face just so; former associates of Hilton's speak of how, in the early days, he once spent 19 straight hours drawing a line of coke coming from Colin Farrell's nose only to delete the whole thing because "it lacks the kind of integrity with which I want the Perez Hilton name to be associated."

This fierce probity and intense dedication to craft paid off. While now-forgotten imitators like "Lindsay Blowhan," "Brad Clit," and "The Vag Whisperer" made their own attempts at deeply unsubtle graphic manipulation, they were easy to spot as poor simulacra: When Perez drew a meaty schlong pumping its heaving load atop the face of a closeted action star you could feel each drop as if its spray were splattering your own visage; when (to use an early rival as an example) Mark Halperin did it, you felt like it was an insincere attempt purely designed to drive traffic. (Although Halperin's insistence that each of his penises be visibly uncircumcised does deserve mention and should be at the forefront of any appreciation of his own oeuvre, which, while vastly inferior to Hilton's, is not wholly without merit, particularly the upskirt stuff.)

It seems, however, that such devotion is difficult to reconcile with both success and the passage of time. As Hilton's fame grew wider and his commercial interests expanded beyond his blog to music promotion and whatever the hell television show it was that he did, there was a noticeable decline in both the aesthetics of his splooge spurters and the underlying righteous anger which had previously provided them with so much moral weight. These days it's rare to the point of extinction that a contemporary Hilton strikes one with that sharp, bracing honesty of old; if rumor is to be believed, Perez does not even sketch his own skeet anymore, leaving that task to a series of unpaid (and, clearly, uninspired) interns whose duties also include crafting the cocks from which said spunk emanates. (Hilton's dongs, to be sure, were always the weakest arrow in his quiver, but they had a crude, folk art quality that owed more than a little bit to American primitives like Howard Finster and were consequently invested with a larger degree of authority than might otherwise have been the case.)

In any event, how, at this vantage point in history, is one to accurately assess the work of Maestro Hilton? His early glory is undeniable; five years from now they will still be raving about his brilliance on message boards and whatever the fuck replaces Facebook. Still, his descent into mere caricature is deeply troubling, raising as it does the vexing question of how an artist's later work colors the way you view his more heroic period. It's a debate that may never be settled; or, more accurately, it's a debate than can only be settled by each individual, deciding for himself how he will allow his opinion to be affected. I, for one, choose to remember the husky young man whose dreams of showering semen on the washed out faces of surprised celebrities showed an eager nation how the new medium of the Internet could really achieve its full potential, rather than the bloated hack whose flaccid phalli represent the devil's bargain that is modern-day success.

Perhaps I'm being naive. But I've still got to give it up for the kid who drew the jizz.