I want to show you how you can make outrageous tabloid photos virtually worthless in three easy steps. But before I do, it's important that you understand a few things.
Tabloids don't make most of their ad revenue from people visiting their site and clicking on ads - not directly anyway.
They make most of their money by having people like you and me share links to those photos on social media. Photos that are surrounded by ads, which you probably ignore for the most part. So you may not think you're doing any harm by visiting these sites - but you are.
How are you doing harm?
You see, you don't have to actually click on any ads to generate revenue for the tabloid. Tabloids are also paid for "impressions", which basically means that they get paid just for putting an ad in front of your face.
The more outrageous the photo, the more impressions, the more money for the tabloid.
So why should you care?
Because this cycle of greed is spiraling out of control. And there is no telling how bad it might get.
Paparazzi have figured out that they will get paid a lot more for an interesting photo. A photo showing emotion. Some paps will say and do outrageous things to evoke an emotional response from celebrities. Why? Because they know they will get paid a lot more for that photo. And, as mentioned, tabloids will also make more off that photo too.
So what can you do about it?
Deny tabloids revenue for the photos they publish - particularly the outrageous ones.
How?
Here are the three easy steps that each one of us can take:
If you see a tabloid photo that you absolutely must share, rather than copy and pasting a link from their webpage into your email or social media messenger,
- Right-click on the actual photo - this should reveal a drop down menu.
- Choose the option that says: "Open image in a new tab". - this will open an ad free version in a new tab on your browser. Here is an example of how the ad free image will look.
- Copy THAT link instead. - You can now paste it into whatever email, twitter, or other message you want to send.
Now obviously not visiting the site altogether would be the best solution. Now that you understand that these images are often instigated, hopefully you will ask yourself if it is really an important part of your life. Must people spread gossip about some situation they really know nothing about?
Should you do this for all photos you find online?
I would have to say "No" to that one. You see, paparazzi is not photojournalism. There are talented photojournalists out their who work hard for reputable news organizations. They deserve to get paid for what they do. In fact, they probably aren't paid enough. Photojournalists pursue the truth, hopefully of important things that matter. Pissing off celebrities doesn't qualify. We need to all work together to make those kind of photos worthless.
Why should you care about celebrities? That's your call, but from my perspective everyone deserves respect and privacy.
Oh yeah, if you really love hashtags as a way to communicate your intention try #ENDpaparazzi. Together we can make their photos worthless.
@papbuster