Popbitch CORN

Popbitch: the once underground gossip and bitching internet messaging board has been closed down from the sheer weight of new found lurkers looking at the site. The tiny thorn in the side of many a careless celeb has had unprecedented media coverage in today's newspapers, including The Sun and The Daily Mail and the News at Ten last night. The immense interest has wilted the humble server, and even the nuclear bunker, in which it is stored, cannot protect it. The David Beckham thing WAS posted on Popbitch (I remember the first posting two days ago and the A-list posters shooting it down as "BOLLOCKS") but I don't believe the rumour started for there. Witness Trevor, for a few days the most famous West Ham supporting, cheating banker boyfriend in the city. I received that email long before it was posted it on Popbitch. In this e-world, rumours and gossip spread like wild fire in a match factory, and Popbitch has burned most brightly because it was the best. After the initial MSN messenger style, the board has evolved into a structured messaging board, with threads and people having their exclusive names or logins. It even had it's own slang (shouts of "corn!" meant something is old news or out of date). Slowly the site grew bigger and bigger until a few months ago it was rocking under it's own weight. This was a time when Popbitch started suffering much criticism, many from it's own posters. From the commercialism of introducing banner ads, claims it was losing it's cutting edge by censoring posts about John Lesie days AFTER the C5 outing and tabloid frenzy and two "eminent" posters eib and PJ appearing in Sleazenation this month, complaining about the amount of non gossip that Popbitch has and the number of poster who have nothing to do with the industry.

I've been lurking on Popbitch for about a year, and it is addictive. I did post the scant bits of gossip I had (B-list celebs spotted stumbling out of clubs, stuff nicked from other sites, some posts even made the front page.) but I really enjoyed the banter and the discussion on it. There was a time when anyone could register and have multiple identities. I did have a "comedy" persona (i_talk_utter_pigshit) but I used it to wind up those who believed everything they read on Popbitch. I thought the login name would have told everyone I'm not serious when I say "Gareth Southgate has a BLACK BOYFRIEND!!!". The editors did not like it either and after about a month, to the relief of some and dissappointment of others, that login was deleted. I also relinquished all my other logins (bob_dylans_mootash, starman), and at about the same time Popbitch also stopped registrations of logins. After a week of not posting I got itchy fingers and emailed a Popbitch regular to get another login. She kindly handed me a spare login about a week ago and I started posting my views and some other titbits. The biggest appeals of Popbitch is the speed of responses. People can reply in seconds to any of your posts and vica versa. It was totally anonymous so you could flame other, tell them to "d) fuck off" call them "cuntswads" and not really worry about the retribution. Hours can be wasted by pressing "Refresh". Afternoons and even whole days can disappear.

Now after all this, I can't seeing Popbitch ever being the same as it was before. Celebs will still get drunk and misbehave and the people in the know, will still be the people in the know, but the average guy like me will just wander through and wonder what we are missing. Briefly there was light at the end of the tunnel, when the eds started viciously deleting all non showbiz posts, and it looked like it would return to it's former glory. But like a injury time free kick, Beckham (or more likely his lawyers) have scored, and gossip websites like these may be relegated to a thing of the past.