Jamie Ross
Without celebrities, our lives would be vapid and soulless. Even the most worthless and unassuming object can instantly can fetch a king’s ransom on eBay if any celebrity so much as excretes a bodily fluid on it, and this is by no means a modern phenomenon. In the first century, a giddy teenage fan thought she had secured the winning bid on Jesus’ blood-sodden Shroud of Turin only to be cruelly gazumped in the dying seconds by the mysteriously monikered ‘Pope_3lol’.
With the dawn of the internet, our celebrity stalking has reached dizzy new heights and has made costly expenses like night-vision goggles and specimen bags a thing of the past. Every self-respecting celebrity has set up his or her own website complete with a tediously extensive biography, a furiously bitter blog and thousands of photographs of the celebrity‘s own face contorted into various unsightly gurns. However, some celebrity websites exceed all expectations.
For example, one day you might stumble across William Roache’s website if you ever happen to repeatedly batter your clenched fist onto your keyboard and mistakenly google William Roache. Better known as Ken from Coronation Street, William has inadvertently produced one of the most incredible multimedia experiences of our generation. At first glance, it looks like any normal shit celebrity website — a picture of his beaming face, biographies, latest news — but, after a few seconds, his picture begins to move and speak like an enchanted corpse.
“Hello, welcome to my website!” he enthuses, as we all look on in wide-eyed astonishment. After the pleasantries, he masks his obvious fury towards anyone who calls him Bill or Ken with a forced grimace and appeases his legions of fans with some brief Coronation Street information before speaking, at length, about his more artistic projects such as his nationwide ‘An Evening With William Roach‘ tour. All of this whilst standing at a bizarre angle which suggests he’s suffered a debilitating stroke mid-pace. As if all of this wasn’t enough, you also have the opportunity to print out a photograph that William has signed and scanned – it’s just like an autograph, but without all the tedious hassle of actually having to meet the person.
Elsewhere on your internet, there’s gremlin-faced breakfast television moron Matthew Wright’s offering. As soon as you enter his site and see a section proudly devoted to ‘Matthew and Hawkwind’ it quickly becomes apparent that Matthew Wright has the self-awareness of a dead paramecium. Apparently, he’s inexplicably joined the terrible 70s space rock band on stage a number of times as a singer — surely it would be just as effective to stomp around a town centre, clanging a bell and bellowing ‘I wish I was young again’ in tears? Delving deeper in to the site, in ‘When he’s not at work…’ you’ll find a massive picture of Matthew Wright, naked but for a blue neckerchief and khaki shorts, holding aloft a giant, dead fish with a triumphant grin on his stupid face.
Honourable mentions go to a complete list of books ever read by Art Garfunkel, Paul Daniels’ deeply depressing blog of right-wing despair, and Kanye West’s infantile ramblings written exclusively in capital letters. Have a look.
