Monday, July 10, 2006

Giving the people what they want...

...which, apparently for people visiting this site is: more Alisen Down!



All right. I confess, I do keep an eye on the statistics about visitors to the site. I get a kick out of seeing where people come from, what's brought them here... how long (or short) they stay. Do I do it obsessively? I don't think so... define "obsessively". Fine, it's obsessive. Moving on.

Okay... so I was talking about the cool things the statistics tell me. And let me tell you, if Alisen Down was a stock... I'd be buying. I've mentioned the lovely Ms. Down a couple times in passing. She's the subject of one of the posts. And I get more hits from Alisen's Official Fan Site, which was sweet enough to link to the post (thank you Alisen's Official Fan Site) than any other site, but even more telling, there is a daily stream of people from all over the world visiting the site after having Googled her.

And it's not just a couple folks in BC specifically, or Canada generally, of which there are many... or the United States, of which there are quite a lot more! There are people from Brazil, Australia, Belgium, the UK, Argentina, Spain... Chile!

I mean, holy smokes!

So, in the interest of giving the people what they want... because all of these Alisen Down fans can't be wrong... here's a Don't Feed the Writer Alisen Down Exclusive-- you will not get this information anywhere else!

1. Alisen Down is taller than you think.... though it might be the heels she sometimes wears.

2. Alisen Down's dad seems like a nice guy. I met him briefly, he told a joke and appeared proud as he could be about his girl.

3. Alisen Down loves aniimals. Especially funny looking dogs.... Okay, I'm making a generalization here, but I'd bet if you had a dog with a bit of character, she'd make a bit of a deal over him.

4. Alisen Down is a good dancer. And not just on screen (where she dances fantastically) but also in real life. I know because I danced with her. That's right suckers! She moved her arms and legs and everything... Okay maybe I didn't dance with her but definitely beside her.

So. There you go Alisen Down fans. That's about all I've got. I just hope Alisen will forgive me for giving out this totally awesome, exclusive, inside stuff.

eTalk Daily consider yourself scooped!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Purely conjecture on my part John, but I'd surmise that Down's handlers finally took a look at some of the posts on her site's forum. Many were "troubling" to say the least. I remember one interchange in particular that probably raised red flags.

Obsessed Nut One: I won't be able to get any messages for a while, I'm going on holiday.

Obsessed Nut Two: Planning on doing some "Alisen-watching"?

Obsessed Nut One: I wish! Sadly, I'll be on the other side of the country. (sigh) Maybe someday...

Remarks such as that tend to give celebrity wranglers pause and prompt them to do things like shut down fan forums. Can you really blame them? Their high-profile clients have enough challenges to their privacy/security without using an official website to chum the psycho waters. Of course it's entirely possible that I'm reading way too much into a change of a section of a website...

Anonymous said...

I think "Nut #1" was the moderator and #2 was just joking. I think it's impolite to call her fans "psychos"--no more than the fans of any other celebrity.

Don't we all want a little attention? That explains people's blogs.

Either Ms. Down or her management felt uncomfortable, I guess--which is their decision entirely.

Anonymous said...

I specifically used the metaphor(or simile, I can never remember the difference and I don't feel like cracking open my OED right now) "chum the psycho waters" because of what it implies.

Chum is used to attract sharks where there are none; not whip them into a feeding frenzy when they're off your starboard. That is to say, I don't think there were any psychos on the forum, but psychos might well have been drawn to a place where such comments were allowed.

I don't know about you Anonymous, but I find it neither cute nor amusing nor innocuous to joke about stalking a celebrity in an online forum. Celebrities can never be too careful about security. Especially in a business where things happen such as this:

www.franksreelreviews.com/shorttakes/shaeffer/shaeffer.htm

A little paranoia is a good quality in a celebrity handler nowadays, and is quite justified. Wouldn't you agree?

As far as me being impolite goes, it wouldn't just be "impolite" for me to refer to Down's fans as psychos. It would be silly and self-deprecating, as I number myself among them!(her fans that is, not psychos)

However, it may have been impolite of me to label people I don't know as "obsessed nuts". But cut me a little slack, I was semiconscious when I typed that.(check the time on my previous comment, 5:38 AM!)

For the record, I have no inside info on why the forum was shut down on Down's official website. As I said in my previous comment, it's all conjecture on my part. Posts about "Alisen-watching" may or may not have had anything to do with it. But based on the draconian posting rules at Down's yahoo group,(the one that links from her official site) I'd say I'm correct.