Barstool

Following up on last week’s post on PerezHilton.com, Hilton recently appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show vowing to change his ways, and stop bullying the rich and famous. According to Telegraph.co.uk, Hilton told DeGeneres, “I'm going to do things differently on my website than I have in the past. I'm not going to call people nasty nicknames. I'm not going to go the mean route. I'm going to force myself to be funnier or smarter.” Whether the traffic of his blog will go down is uncertain, however, he claims to not care, because he is growing and challenging himself to be better at what he does, and hoping that his fans will stick with him.

I’d like to focus this blog entry on a regionalized blog, Barstool Sports. Barstool Sports began as a media outlet tailored specifically to an audience in the Boston, Massachusetts area. As popularity grew, the site expanded and a New York edition was created. The blog’s mantra, “By the common man, for the common man,” is fitting considering the testosterone driven nature of the website. However, a second spin-off blog, Stool La La, is targeted to the female audience.

Content of both blogs, Barstool Boston and Barstool New York, is for the most part the same. Themes centralize around sports, attractive women, YouTube clips, and basically anything else the hosts find entertaining (typically, at the expense of others). The obvious difference between the two blogs is the rivalry east-coast sports teams which they follow. Posts are generally geared toward their local audiences, including the “Smokeshow of the Day” galleries. Both blogs feature a local “Smokeshow” of the day – a pretty girl whose Facebook photos have been searched through and uploaded into galleries. Anyone can be nominated simply by e-mailing a name and Facebook profile link to the sites hosts. A harmless exhibition and chance at fifteen-minutes of fame, or degrading display of scantily-clad young girls? That’s for you to decide.

While on this topic, I’d like to mention a similar type of blog, BroBible.com. On BroBible visitors can also nominate a “Girl to Bring Home to Mom.” The site advertises, “Every Wednesday, we're introducing you to a new dream girl, like Siobhan, who's so hot and cool that all your fellow Bros would be jealous if you landed her, but also so sweet and adorable that you wouldn't hesitate to show her off to Mom. Want to nominate a Girl to Bring Home to Mom? Ask her first! We're only looking for girls who actually want to be featured as a BroBible Girl to Bring Home to Mom. So get her permission, then email us at matt [at] brobible [dot] com with your nominations.” The difference from Barstool being that BroBible actually includes bio about the girl and asks her permission before publicizing her personal information.

If you’ve had enough of the “bro” blogs, I’d like to wind things up by mentioning Stool La La. A subdivision of Barstool Sports, Stool La La, is Barstool’s female equivalent. Although still in its fledgling stages, the site puts forth tremendous effort in keeping up with the boys, sort of speak. Posts tend to vary from the typical celebrity and pop culture topics, to anything entertaining or humorous that Jenna or Abby, the blogs authors, come across. I enjoy the variety and witty captions that this site contains. And speaking of keeping up with the boys, Stool La La has its own version of Smokeshow, called “Guess Those Abs.” Hey, if the boys want to play that game, so can us girls.