Oh No He Di'nt! Jared Leto Flogs Blogs

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I have always had a thing for floppy brown-haired boys that are slightly dreamy, dark, and twisty, so Jared Leto on "My so-Called Life" was very crush-worthy during my middle-school/high school years. But now he's gone and put his foot in his prettyboy mouth by criticizing bloggers, thus spoiling any teenage memories I had and any enjoyment I got from listening to his "I'm-so-much-more-than-an-actor-see-I'm-also-in-an-indie-band" music gig thingy.

I'm sorry you want all the bloggers in the world to die, Jared, but the best things about blogs is this: we can quicky get access to interviews about celebs like yourself, and learn just how pompous a jerk you really are; how's that for educating the stupid illiterate masses? (Yes I know, I know, he will never read this post and could care less how I feel if he did, but it feels good to say that.)

I just think it's rich that the probably the greatest tool being uses to spread the word about his band and keep people updated on what they are doing is the very one he is flogging. You do realize your band has a MySpace page, right Jared? You do realize that that is technically a blog? I think Mr. Leto needs to lay off the hasheesh and get caught up with this "intrawebnet" thing the kids are all into nowadays, at least so he won't sound like a complete idiot in all his interivews. To paraphrase one of their songs, the most beautiful lie is the one you end up telling to yourself, and methinks Jared needs some honesty to come along and smack him down a peg or two.

I also think it's ironic that he is bashing bloggers as these immature kids falsely posing on the web and making up lies, when rock musicians do the exct same thing by creating a stage persona. Besides, I think in many ways you can be more of your true self on the web, not less. But that is just me. And he hates that "anybody" can post news on a blog now, but I would also quip that I hate that "anybody" can now start a band and because of the web be famous. (But I'm not really mad at all, I love it, OK Go you rock!) It is only because of the celeb culture that he is trashing and his fame as an actor that his little fledgling band got so much press the first place. Oh, how quicky the mighty forget.

This whole incident reminds me somewhat of when Metallica bashed people downloading songs for free (mostly because they are greedy jerks.) Both of these bands' fans most likely have blogs of their own/download free music, and you should NEVER bash your fans Jared, it always backfires in the end and makes you look petty and ungrateful. I realize you Gen Xers are into different things than us Gen Yers, but can't we at least be civil about it? Sheesh.

And his belief that blogging will die a quick death, that it is just a fad, is about as priceless at the senator's rant that the interet is a "series of tubes." You just can't make this stuff up, and I love it.

We Saw 30 Seconds ot Mars at a Music Fest last year. The band was fine, whatever, but the songs weren't really incredibly memorable (I forgot they were even there, Elicia had to remind me the other day when we went to the same fest last weekend), and even Elicia thought Jared was swearing a little too gratuitously, thus trying too hard to be edgy. But of course, Snow Patrol stole my heart that day, and they are tough competition to follow. So maybe I am just being unfair and biased, heaven knows it's happened before.

Anyway, I've trimmed down the article below, read and decide for yourself if I'm overreacting or it he truly it the pompous idiot I am painting him as. I still can't tell if the interviewer was agreeing with him or just egging him on, as he is all sarastic in the last line of the article. Tell me what you think.

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Exclusive: Jared Leto Loves Rock, Hates Blogs
Posted by popculturekilla - Tuesday, September 19, 2006 4:08 PM
30 Seconds To Mars' Jared Leto Talks Rock, Beautiful Lies & Why Bloggers Should Die

Most folks know Jared Leto from his role as the hunky love interest on MTV’s My So Called Life and flicks like Requiem for a Dream and Panic Room. But these days, many are getting to know him through his rock band 30 Seconds To Mars, whose sophomore album, A Beautiful Lie, is a much-buzzed-about surprise hit...

The band’s self-titled 2002 debut album was produced by the great Bob Ezrin (Nine Inch Nails, Pink Floyd, KISS, Alice Cooper) and sold over 100,000 copies. But heavy touring and Leto’s high profile as a celeb garnered them a slow but steady buzz, so that A Beautiful Lie came out of the gate strong in 2005.

Combining goth with alt-rock, yet with a glam sensibility, 30 Seconds To Mars (Jared, plus brother Shannon on drums, guitarist Tomo Milicavic and bassist Matt Wacther) sound more like a seasoned band, rather than an actor’s side-project, and are being embraced by the MySpace/YouTube-obsessed youth. Yet ironically, Leto is wary of the cyber world in some ways, embracing the reality of his music rather than the videogames and reality TV that so many are into these days. Any why not? Here’s a guy who can’t stay out of the online gossip sites, despite his desire to. It’s no wonder he’s dismissive of the celebrity obsessed online culture. He’s practically stalked by them every day...

G4: It seems like you guys have successfully gotten rid of the “rock side-project of an actor” tag and come into your own as a band at this point. What do you attribute that to?

JARED: Hard work, perseverance, determination, conviction, passion, an incredibly dedicated cult following that is a defining part of what 30 Seconds to Mars is, and a belief in what we do and who we are.

G4: How do you see yourself in relation to other rock bands out there at the moment?

JARED: We’ve always been kind of strange, musically and how we present ourselves live. We’ve always been kind of the odd man out. But we just played Warped tour recently, and quite often a lot of bands would come over and check us out. And that’s always fun when your peers respect what you do and have an interest in your art. We played an incredible time slot every day, and it was fantastic. It couldn’t have gone better...

G4: What does the title, A Beautiful Lie, refer to?

JARED: That’s the contradiction of life, basically, the contradictions of humanity…of what it is to be human.

G4: In terms of?

JARED: Every rose has his thorn.

G4: Well, I guess that’s kind of what I was looking for, some sort of a Poison reference...

G4: Do you do a lot of blogging from the road?

JARED: No, I think that blogging should die a sudden death.

G4: Why?

JARED: It’s just ridiculous. It’s like a playground for four-year-olds. People say and do things in the world of blogs that they would never do in real life, and I think it’s a false experience. You know, it’s, like, eating too much candy.

G4: So you don't read alot of the celebrity gossip blogs, I take it?

JARED: Well, you know, one of the things along those lines that bothers me about when people start citing blogs as news sources is that when people are writing on these blogs, they feel like they don’t feel they need to do any research or back up their opinions with facts or anything, you know what I mean?

G4: Why is there this inherent lack of responsibility when it comes to blogging as journalism?

JARED: I couldn’t tell you. Times have changed. It used to be, to be a writer you had to have experience and talent, and learn a craft. Now anybody with an opinion, which is anyone and everyone, feels that it’s worthy. Technology is allowing people to have access to things where before it required very great skill. So there will be some interesting developments from that, and also some things that are pretty worthless. Pretty soon anybody with a cell phone is going to be able to be a news reporter.The blog is yesterday’s parachute pants. It’s here now but it’s gone tomorrow.

G4: You no longer have to even know what news reporting is.

JARED: You really don’t. All you have to do is point your friggin’ Blackberry at somebody and get a picture and send it off to your favorite blog site.

G4: A celebrity goes to a Starbucks and there’s a picture of them 10 minutes later up on a blog somewhere and it becomes news!

JARED: Sometimes it’s interesting, but most of the time the bloggers themselves are just trying to get famous so they can make some money and sell advertising dollars and duping these poor people who are on the internet all day long.

G4: Yeah, those people are lame. Anyways, I gotta run and go post this on G4’s blog, TheFeed, so I can make some money, sell advertising dollars and dupe those poor people who are on the internet all day long. Suckers!

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Link courtesy of Whitney at the Candy, another blogger I love who, according to Jared, as a celebrity/pop culturist should just die. (Never mind that she actually did graduate in journalism and works for a credible newspaper; her fifth podcast, posted 9/18, talks all about that.)