Sunday, November 30, 2008

GOOP Off!

Yes, it's a letter from Gwyneth of Paltrow on her website, GOOP. I dig this bit:

Many of my friends, or friends of friends, have asked me for "my London" so that when someone is traveling here, or lives here but wants some extra info, it is compiled in one place.
Indeedy, I used Thanksgiving weekend to nourish my inner aspect and get all caught up on the Gwynnie website I've had such fun mocking here and here. Sure, talking smack about Gwynnie-pops is akin to shooting fish in a barrel, but as I said before, Gwyneth personally asked me to mock her, and who am I to deny the call of a shalebritay!

Back to GOOP, one big change to the site is that we now no longer have to wait for the Goopy newsletters to come to us; at last when you go to GOOP there is actually content there. And what content it is!

My favorite is the above, which appears under the tab GO, and is the opener to a travel tip piece on London. Or specifically, on Gwyneth's London. For as she said, many people (friends and "friends of friends") who come to London or even those who live here, can now come to the website and conveniently access Gwyneth Gooping off in one place. Which I guess is why she's doing this. I mean, she's definitely not writing this for us, the plebby strangers, as she makes abundantly clear:
The first installment of this three-part newsletter will include restaurant, hotels and pubs. The hotels are on the pricey side, but my GOOP girls are doing some research into some more affordable places which we will personally try before recommending.
Fewking un.be.lie.vable. Gwyn's words are swiftly followed by images of a sumptuous palace called the Blakes hotel, "my home away from home in London before I got a flat." A flat. Perhaps most astonishing in this bit about hotel is the phrase "my GOOP girls." GOOP girls! Who are they? We know they will be responsible for sleeping in some pretty un-Gwynnie-worthy beds to prove to Gwynnie that plebby hotels do exist in Londres. What does it take to become a GOOP girl? I wonder. Do you have to be blonde? Do you have to be British? How do you get the gig? Does it even really exist? I mean, if Gwynnie seriously gave a rat's bum about providing affordable accommodation tips on her trippy website, wouldn't she have found some before she shared this nugget of a so-called newsletter with the general public?

These and other mysteries we shall continue to ponder in what will now become a regular series chez Crabmommy: the GOOP Off! Stay tuned. And thanks to my friend Justin for customizing these GOOP-inspired buttons for my website.
You'll see a lot more of those in future Crabmommy dispatches. ...And hey! Gwyneth, if you're reading this, you GOOP, girl! You really do.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sheesh Gwynie Poo, don't you have enough $$?

It seems like an advertising portal to me.

Anonymous said...

Oh thank you for this post! I thought I was all GOOPed up alone in my GOOP dismay. I was especially felled by the hotel and pubs recs. GOOP needs an antidote to its Bev Hills-ish, wallet-sucking taste(perhaps a bite of tube food?). GOOP does not know the London most London-fanatics know. Yeah, okay, GOOP knows Wagamamas, but the inference is eating there equals slumming. Thanks, Crabmommy! Us peasants thank you. I wonder what color GOOP girls wear. Certainly they wear fluffy berets. And heels.

Anonymous said...

The reality is that Gywn makes more money than most people do. If she wants to suggest expensive hotels, who cares? Please, haven't you ever read a fashion mag or travel mag? There are plenty of them and you pay for them to suggest which expensive hotels you can stay at!

She has lots of posts on her site that aren't as pricey. She has geared part of her site to an upscale urban woman and part to the average person. If you feel somehow insulted by that, just stop being such a crab (sorry, can't resist) and just don't read it!

I mean, really! Are you doing a blog complaining about Instyle, Vogue Magazine, and Harper's too? How about Martha Stewart or Donald Trump's site? Maybe you have some words of criticism for those sites too?

The internet is an amazing tool. It takes you where you want to go. If you don't like it, just don't go there!

And we can all get back to reading something more relevant.

Amanda said...

Hi Anonymous,

Maybe poor Gwyn just has a case of bad timing. Or maybe she's just an arrogant toss. Either way it's hard to resist making fun of someone who loves to look down on the plebs from on high. Gwyn's hi-priced recs would be less eminently mockable if she didn't sneer at the lower classes quite so much, telling us that that "my rock star friends love it here!" and "this place is really hard to get into but..."

I have heard it said that Gwyneth prides herself on being refined and loathes any press that tries to invade her privacy. Inviting people to sit at her knee and hear about "my super fortunate amazing" and "very unique" life is not refined, it's smug. And so it gets the derision it deserves, from me and many others.

It's true that I could look away. But I am having a ball making fun of Goop. It's hard to let things lie when there are such zingers in that newsletter, about humility and ubuntu and all that stuff...Such irony. It's priceless.

foolery said...

Miss Crabmommy, did you get a look at Anonymous before she left? Was she wearing heels and a fluffy beret?

Ordinarily I side with Anonymous in situations like these: if you don't like it go away. And I do, FAST.

BUT

some people are born with targets painted on their foreheads, and those you cry for and look away.

Others go out and buy (cruelty-free, organic and fair trade) red paint and PAINT THE FECKING TARGET ON THEIR OWN FOREHEADS. Gwynnie-baby is the poster child for this last group. Crabmommy would be stiffing her muse if she didn't take up target practice.

Go, Crabmommy, go!

Anonymous said...

Ya know, I read this thanks to Oprah, because I thought it would make me appreciate Gwyneth more. After I scoured this sight, (and tried those ridiculous ass exercises), I loathed her even more. Then Bono completely dissed her jerky husband, and all was validated. Gwynnie and Chris and jump in a lake, outside their PRICEY hotel, and feck off. I think they both suck rotten eggs, and are arrogant jerks.

London hotels said...

London is beautiful, I agree with Gwyneth. I was there 3 times in vacations thorough last minute travel and it was fantastic. I always want to come back there again.

Powered By Blogger