Here is a research paper I wrote on the website, thedirty.com for a communication criticism course I took in Spring of 2011. Please do not plagiarize.
The
Dirty on “The Dirty”:
How Gossip Websites Can Devalue Women
In
her famous work The
Second Sex, Simone De Beauvoir analyzes the plight of women throughout
time, attempting to trace history back to the origin of women being considered
the less valuable, or “second”, sex. De Beauvoir does not find a specific event
in history that marks the origin of women’s oppression and argues that she is
confused as to how the mistreatment ever began. She makes the argument that the perception of women being
the weaker gender is perpetuated by cultural stereotypes and beliefs around the
world, rather than any sort of innate or biological cause. She says, “One is not born, but rather
becomes, a woman” (De Beauvoir).
While these cultural stereotypes of been presented in various ways in
different cultures and eras, many of today’s media outlets have created a cause
for concern. In the realm of
celebrity gossip, twitter feeds, and tabloid magazines, women are subjugated to
society’s definitions of them.
Tabloid covers not only tell women exactly how they are supposed to
look, but how they are supposed to act.
Women are only deemed “feminine” if they are artificially made up. Women are only called “feminine” if
they act passively, as an object to be viewed by an audience. One weblog in particular, TheDirty.com,
shows just how demeaning social media can be in criticizing the female
body. From the design of the
website to the language it uses, this social outlet creates and perpetuates the
stereotype that a woman’s only worth is found in her sexual appearance, which
is debated and determined by other men and women on the site. “The Dirty” objectifies both the male
and female body and specifically creates a schism between women by creating a system
where they demean each other.
I.
Examining
the Subject
Nik
Ritchie’s media outlet takes the objectification of women to a new level. “The Dirty”, or thedirty.com, is a
website spinoff from the Perez Hilton gossip blog that is specifically centered
on the judgment of women’s appearances.
Nik Ritchie, the fictional name of the owner or author of the blog,
analyzes pictures of women that people submit. People from all around the country can submit a photo of a
girl, categorize it under a college or city, and then write a paragraph to
Nik’s character, usually referring to the girl as a “slut” or “whore” and
asking Nik’s opinion of the girl based on a handful of photos. Nik will then pick out details to critique,
whether it is her “horse face” or “saggy mom tits” or even the type of breast
procedure a woman has had (“The Dirty”).
But
Ritchie’s criticisms do not end there.
He goes one to make assumptions about the girl’s lifestyles and even
instructs his audiences on how to interact with them. “Stay away from this bitch unless you want a whole plateful
of STD’s”, Ritchie says of one girl who’s photograph show’s her with her arm
around a friend and smiling into the camera (“The Dirty”). Because the website classifies women
based on college, state, and city, the women are often recognized by visitors
of the site. Dr. Phil recently ran
an episode highlighting the website and questioning Ritchie about the morality
of his methods. On the same show,
Bruna, an aspiring model, appeared and accused Ritchie of ruining her life and
future career, as she can no longer work as a model for any of the companies
she had previously been working with because of the slander the website
created. After someone posted her
photo on “The Dirty”, Ritchie spread stories about her prostituting herself to
pay for implants. In response,
Bruna claimed peoples said, “Horrible things that just tore me apart. It’s cyber
bullying. It got to the point where I didn’t want to go out, or I couldn’t have
my pictures taken. I have a really hard time trusting people now” (Araujo; Ritchie) . “The Dirty”
is a dangerous Internet outlet that not only portrays women as objects whose
worth is solely based on their appearance, but as objects who will never have
any worth because no appearance is adequate. Richardson writes, in The
Dynamics of Sex and Gender, that even the slang terms alone, “whore” and
“slut”, are enough to devalue these anonymous women. Hearing (or reading) about women being called prostitutes or
whores creates the familiarity that makes it a seemingly acceptable term. In response, women feel as though they
should act out in such a way to justify these terms, since they have already
been labeled a “whore” (Richardson). This form of criticism is a double-edged
sword that even has women turning against themselves and perpetuating gender
stereotypes.
II.
The
Public Response
While
“The Dirty” is considered one of the most successful gossip blogs because of
its public popularity, it is one of the most detrimental and demeaning blogs of
its kind. This website, using
photos submitted from the general public to judge and critique, creates a double
standard for women. It perpetuates the stereotype that women are only valued
because of their looks; then, it lessens even their value based on appearance
by claiming that no look is adequate, only “slutty” or “whorish” (Banner). The website draws in women making them
think it is fun and useful to critique and objectify other women. Banner writes in Women in America that the general public holds such a high standard
for women in the public eye, that very little publicity is ever positive. Rather, the criticisms have little to
do with a woman’s intellect or capacity to work well, but how she appears
physically to others (Banner).
This type of judgment stops a feminist reclamation of the female body
from occurring because it tells women that they do not control their own
bodies. Rather, society dictates
how they should appear to be considered appropriate. Because of society’s obsession with the female appearance,
“The Dirty” became an almost instant success. In the previously mentioned interview with Dr. Phil, Ritchie
himself talked about how he would rarely sensor the website because of the
amount of interest generated by the more obscene posts (Ritchie) . Whether not it was positive or
negative response, the important thing to note is that the public did respond.
But
the public response has been somewhat negative. Along with social media outlets critiquing the website, “The
Dirty” has also faced a few lawsuits already. According to Politico,
a popular news source, “The Dirty” has already been involved in multiple
lawsuits and fined over eleven million dollars, even though it has only become
popular in recent months (Wong) . The website has been criticized for slander
and ruining the reputations and sometimes the careers of the innocent
bystanders who are unknowingly discussed on the website (Wong). However, because of the legal freedoms
surrounding Internet blogging, legal recourse is unlikely to be successful in
ending the website. An article on the online blog for Forbes discusses why the lawsuits
against the site were not successful. “The Dirty” has defended itself by
claiming that it is protected by the freedoms of speech and of the press and
writes under fictitious names to avoid slander. Moreover, much of what is said is posted by visitors of the
website, and not the author’s themselves.
To make matters even more confusing, there is not one official owner of
the site so the lawsuits have actually been charged against the wrong company (Hill) . Just like YouTube cannot be easily sued
for the comments that viewers leave on videos, “The Dirty” is legally protected
by blogging rights. However, even
if there is not hope for a legal solution to the damage “The Dirty” has
created, perhaps a cultural solution will suffice. Rather than ban the website through judicial acts, our
culture should enforce higher standards of media by not participating in such
damaging web gossip. Already,
there has been social movements propagated through avenues such as Facebook
with groups called “Stop the Dirty.com From Ruining People’s Lives” “The Dirty” has a uniquely manipulative
way of categorizing women, getting women involved in demeaning each other, and
then turning that into an internet business.
III. A
Feminist Criticism
The
website can be critiqued for perpetuating the stereotypes typically assumed of
women. Throughout history, women
have been portrayed in stories, myth, religions, and other outlets as one of
two main categories: the seductive beauty, or the maternal comforter. In casual terms, women are depicted as
the archetypal “whore” or else the “mother”. A woman is either valued purely for her beauty and treated
as a trophy, or is expected to play the role of a comforter and provider, or
even a servant. In both archetypal stereotypes, the woman is seen as a subject
to a patriarch, or male culture (Banner).
“The Dirty” puts almost every woman into the category of the whore. Nik, the fictional name of the author
of the website, even goes so far as to comment on the girls’ characters based
purely off of their picture. He
will analyze a girl’s teeth and her smile and then jump to the conclusion that
her personality is “as boring as hell” (“The Dirty”). None of these girls are given the chance to have any value
beyond the pictures snapped of them on the street. “The Dirty” takes stereotypes to new levels when it even eliminates
the archetype of “mother”, or the maternal female, from being allowed into the
discussion. The website has a
specific section that it dedicates to “cougars”, or older women who are assumed
to act too young for their age.
Even though the website places all of a woman’s value on her physical
appearance, if a woman over the age of thirty or forty is photographed wearing
heavy makeup or a seductive outfit, she is criticized for being a
“cougar”. Nik comments that these
women are embarrassing and wrinkled and too old to be out in public rather than
celebrating the fact that they are simply older women, affected by normal aging
(“The Dirty”). This doesn’t allow
for older women, or even younger women, to earn respect or value for being a
motherly character. This website
sets up a standard ranks all women under the category of the “whore”, or they
simply do not exist in the context of this form of social media. This sends the message to women
that even if they are criticized for it, they must become “the whore” to even
be acknowledged (Banner).
Some
would argue that all social media, especially in dealing with celebrity and
public gossip, has already spiraled out of control, as they are very judgmental
of women’s appearances. Yet “The
Dirty” stands out above the rest and is uniquely detrimental to women above
many other media sources. While there are countless publications, tabloids, and
social blogs that define women solely based off of their appearances, “The
Dirty” uses a different format.
Instead of having an author make condescending statements about the women,
“The Dirty” has women do it to themselves, by posting photos of other women and
commenting on them. The website,
then, simply agrees with their position so that they cannot be directly
criticized for slander. Why
would women want to do this to other women, when it only hurts and objectifies
them further? Naomi Wolf writes
about the solidarity and “sisterhood” of women and what happens when women are
turned against each other in the workplace. She argues that because women could possibly pose a threat
to men in the workplace, an interesting phenomenon has been exposed where
workplaces will put unfair beauty requirements on women for them to be
successful (Wolf). Orr writes, in The
Professional Beauty Qualification that the standard of a woman’s appearance
is particularly criticized in the workplace. Though it may be subliminal, men see women as a threat to
their job security in the workplace.
Because women are as fit and capable in every way of his way of employment,
they double the competitive field.
An easy way for men to remove the competition from females is to place a
standard of beauty on them. In
order to be good workers, the work environment assumes they must also be
beautiful workers. This way, women
are not an equal threat to a primarily masculine workforce (Orr). This is especially effective when women
begin to tear down one another because then there is no sort of solidarity, or groupthink,
that can gain power by numbers.
Specifically, this phenomenon is seen in social media centered on gossip
networks, where women are the primary readers and become the primary
instigators of the sneering and abusive comments (Fairclough). Just as Orr writes about the strategic
dis-unification of women in the workplace, Deborah Jones discusses how men can
become concerned about the bonding that occurs between women during
gossip. The solution then is for
men to monitor and control the gossiping outlets to strategically keep women
from bonding together (Jones). “The
Dirty” does just this. The website
cannot be directly criticized for being directly abusive to women because
technically the women just do it to themselves. However, this is a weak excuse because the construction of
the website allows for this sort of disruption to occur.
Finally,
“The Dirty” does not just affect the readers of the blog alone. It is a part of a much larger issue
affecting many areas of social media and tabloid agendas. Simonsen writes about the grand effect
that the media has on the image of women, taking it to expensive and unhealthy
extremes. The depiction of women
in the media has more of an influence than practical health concerns or even a
health history. With more and more
women pushing their bodies to extreme diets or dangerously costly health
procedures, the issue must be addressed (Simonsen). On “The Dirty”, Nik takes the liberties with one photo of a
young woman taking a bite of a burrito saying, “Women should never take
pictures of themselves eating….it is just not a good look” (“The Dirty”). The website has placed a female’s image
above something as practical as eating.
Not only can a website dictate how women should look, but it now
controls how they present and take care of themselves.
IV.
The
Problem is Perpetuated: The Economic Justification for Sexism
It
is important to note that this website was not created only for tearing down
women. Pictures and discussions of
men also appear on the website.
Yet, they are few and far between because they do not generate the same
kind of interest. Moreover, the
criticisms of the men on the site have little to do with their appearances, but
what they happen to be doing in the photographs. With a clear explanation of how hurtful this website can be,
it is interesting that it continues to gain popularity. A similar website critiquing the
appearances of a man would not generate the same kind of interest. Women are specifically targeted for
many reasons, but perhaps one of the main reasons is because this damaging
gossip often leads to a social following, an economic payout, and web blog
success.
For example, “The Politics of Talking in
Groups”, an article in Ms. Magazine, argues
that there is a way to make money off of Internet gossip. Because women are the main viewers of
the website, creating an abusive and self-deprecating system tragically is an
effective business model. It can coerce
women into reprimanding other women, which increases women’s concern over their
own bodies. This forces an
obsessive comparison to other women, which keeps them coming back to the site
(Steinem). Thus, it begins to
spiral out of control. Just as
Richie said he will not discontinue the website because of the profit he makes,
other industries also participate in this form of objectification purely
because it is profitable. Many
tabloids, on the Internet and in print, see such revenue built around judgment
of the female body that the ethicality of their actual methods is never
questioned. But the Internet
industry isn’t the only one benefitting.
Dworkin argues that there is no price that women will be unwilling to
pay for beauty, even if they get posted on a website and called a whore for
trying to achieve that beauty.
Suddenly, this single website can be seen in a way that affects social
media and internet gossip, all the way to our advertising of clothing and
household cleaning products to women’s’ eating habits (Dworkin). Ritchie’s website is targeting many of
the same women that some shampoo products do. While “The Dirty” may be funny to some and entertaining to
most, it is certainly harmful to women everywhere, by creating and perpetuating
the stereotype that women are only objects to be viewed and criticized.
V. A
Hope for Reclamation
From
the lawsuits by a Texas cheerleader to an interview on Dr. Phil, it is clear
that “The Dirty” will not simply go under the radar. The website has generated so much interest that it cannot be
ignored. Just as Facebook groups
are starting to gain followings of people committed to ignoring the website,
discussions have started everywhere trying to figure out how to control these
websites. Dr. Phil links it to the
phenomenon of cyber bullying that has recently been addressed. He says that the Internet, because it
is not necessarily under the control of the U.S. government, can often get away
with much of what it publishes (Araujo) . However, already we are seeing progress
on a legislative level. The White
House recently held a conference to discuss the appropriate approach to cyber
bullying (White House Ready to Rumble With Cyberbullies) . By increasing awareness as well as Internet
regulation, we can hope to see a decrease in the abuse allowed by websites like
“The Dirty”.
Yet,
there is still much to be done.
Rather than just relying on the government to protect women from an
abusive Internet, society must also realize that it is in control. One of the only ways to control the
website is to control is popularity.
Women should refuse to post photos on the site, or even visit the site. Even more than criticizing the media
outlet, ignoring it will insure its demise. Above and beyond this particular website, the media must be
held responsible for the way it portrays women and their bodies.
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