Now, anyone could be an It Girl, and our existing It Girls were closer than ever. It was suddenly possible to become “MySpace famous.” You could visit Katy Perry’s page and find out she loves roller-skating and mini golf, Lizzy Grant’s influences include Nirvana, Coney Island, and motorcycles, and that Kim Kardashian, known then as Paris’ assistant, used to customize her princess-themed page. “I thought to myself, ‘Why don’t big artists use MySpace?’” The platform, which was the progenitor of social media as we know it, not only allowed the sharing and discovery of music, it appeared to level the playing field. “I remember sitting at my computer looking up one of the local college bands,” she says, recalling a time when she would lug around her “giant” Sony Vaio. A pioneer of social media marketing, Petrey was one of the first to realize the potential in MySpace.
And it’s always been the It Girls who ride that wave.įor Cassie Petrey, co-founder of artist management firm Crowd Surf, this was a pivotal time. It seems party culture, music meant for a good time, has always been too something, until it’s mainstreamed. Suddenly our lives were documented, too, and everything and everyone was in the same place. It was the crest of Mark “The Cobrasnake” Hunter’s party photos - we saw our It Girls mingling, mascara-smeared in the flash, and sought to emulate them, posting our own saturated pics in superfluity. beat out Viacom to acquire MySpace in 2005, and a year later, Facebook began allowing non-college students to make profiles. Which is how we know Paris is dating Good Charlotte’s Benji Madden, and that Britney’s been put in a conservatorship, and Lindsay is officially coupled with British DJ Samantha Ronson, the little sister of the guy who made “Valerie” with Amy Winehouse. They’ve made it clear they just want to live, that they are just people, even in their very not-like-us way, but the paps don’t stop. Oh my God that Britney’s shameless! - following in the footsteps of LiLo’s “Rumors,” three years earlier. Brit snaps back with “Gimme More” and “Piece of Me” - It’s Britney, b*tch I’m Mrs. But everyone is still listening to “Stars Are Blind” and watching the last season of The Simple Life. In November, there will be the “Bimbo Summit” - the Post’s sleazy on-brand belittling of Paris, Britney, and Lindsay, our ’00s It Girl triad.įast-forward to 2007 and Brit’s shaved her head, the 45 days of jail time Paris served for drunk driving are a late-night punchline, and Lindsay’s movies are flopping. Nicole Richie and DJ AM have been on-again, off-again for years, but this time it looks like it’s really quits. It’s 2006: Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton are feuding over Stavros Niarchos, and Britney’s given up Kabbalah because her baby is “her religion.” Just My Luck is out on DVD, The Simple Life is airing on Fox, and Paris CDs are for sale at Tower Records.