How Social Media Became the New Tabloid Magazine

We've all seen them: The magazines with shocking headlines claiming that *insert A-list celebrity here* is pregnant or filing for divorce or in need of rehab. Maybe you’ve scanned one of those while in line at the grocery store or waiting at your dentist’s office.

Lately, it seems like fewer and fewer people are actually reading these magazines. Even in a waiting room, you're more likely to see someone scrolling on their phone than flipping through a magazine, probably because we already read those articles online months ago. We've all heard the whispers that print is dead, but there's never been a more solid case for that than the shift from tabloid magazines to gossip social media pages. 

If we define a tabloid as any magazine publishing sensationalistic stories for shock value, we can date them back to the 19th century. New York and London were the leaders in producing these stories, with publications like New York World and The Daily Mirror, respectively. 

In the 1970s, supermarkets began selling the weekly US tabloids, focusing on anything from Hollywood celebrities to political conspiracies. The tabloid industry peaked in the 1990s and 2000s. With the rising interest in celebrity scandals, tabloids became a place people turned to as frequently as reputable news outlets.

Tabloid journalism really gained an online presence in 2005 when TMZ was founded, a completely online source for tabloid-style stories. Also in the early 2000s came the rise of the 24-hour news cycle. With more time to fill, quickly reciting the facts wasn't cutting it. Instead, we were now getting the opinions of the reporters along with our news. 

Now, as cell phones have become such an essential part of daily life, accessing news is possible at any time and anywhere. Many publications like TMZ even offer breaking news alerts so you can get real-time notifications about the latest celebrity scandal.

There's no doubt that society is obsessed with celebrity culture. It’s exciting to know who is going where and doing what and tabloids are the best way to find that out. But there’s also no doubt that they’re not the most ethical news source. Many celebrities have come out and spoken about the negative impact that tabloids have had on their life in the public eye.

In the early 2000s, the stress of paparazzi and reporters documenting Britney Spears' personal life led to a very public meltdown that was the catalyst for her being put under a conservatorship for 13 years. Even further back, the paparazzi's aggressive hounding of Princess Diana led to the car accident that took her life. More recently, Meghan Markle admitted to having suicidal thoughts after facing months of ridicule from tabloids, and Taylor Swift spoke about how having photos taken of her every single day negatively impacted her body image and caused her to develop an unhealthy relationship with food. 

While tabloid publications still exist, today's hottest source for celebrity gossip is not a publication at all. Instagram accounts like The Shade Room and Deux Moi have gotten verified by posting gossip they find elsewhere. In fact, Deux Moi relies entirely on follower submissions, with no way to verify if any information coming through is reliable or not. The biggest draw to the Deux Moi page is its “Sunday Spotted” series, where it rounds up any DM from the week where someone spotted a celebrity, often including exactly when and where they were, sometimes including a blurry, zoomed-in photo. 

One of the biggest draws to these social media accounts, besides their immediacy, is that they allow you to become a participant instead of just an observer. Like a real-life Gossip Girl, these accounts encourage you to send in your own spottings or gossip. At the end of the day, the desire to be a part of celebrity culture has effectively turned these pages into the more popular option for celebrity news, taking over the need for printed tabloid magazines.

While there’s nothing wrong with being enamored with celebrity culture, but there must be a way to engage with it without harming the people at the center. Deux Moi is a particularly interesting take on the new age tabloids, considering the person behind the account keeps their identity anonymous and discourages finding out who they are.