Popcrazy Chronicles Teen TV, Music, More

By: Charles Bowen It's not high art, but it's just the sort of fluffy stuff your readers might want after a seemingly endless winter. Think Buffy and Britney and Ashanti and Anna Nicole. How about retrospective glances at "Baywatch" and "Three's Company?"

A site called Popcrazy chronicles the demise of "Dawson's Creek" and the rise of "Darkness Falls" and gets into the hearts and minds of celebrities from J.Lo to Fat Joe. At last, Hanson and Felicity and that poor, downtrodden Pamela Anderson get what we used to call "their propers."

"Popcrazy," says co-founder and Editor Lisa Beebe in an online statement, "is for anyone who has ever been ashamed of loving a pop star, a teen show on the WB, or any aspect of pop culture that the rest of the world thinks is dumb." Working with a skilled school of energetic contributors, the site serves as an online publication that samples soaps, rates the latest pop albums and, of course, keeps watch on the activities of David Hasselhoff.

What's all this got to do with daily newspapering? Where else are you going to turn to find out what the cool kids think about Corey Feldman, MC Hammer, Brande Roderick, and that nasty girl from "Survivor?"

To get in on the fun, check out the site at http://www.popcrazy.com, where a pleasantly bright introductory page has links to music, TV, movies, and more. Scroll the page for links to the site's current features and news from the pop culture world. It's here you can learn that TV's acclaimed but failed "Freaks and Geeks" may make it to a DVD and that "Tron parties" -- yes, based on the 1982 sci-fi flick -- have been making the rounds this winter.

Warning: this site is not a searchable, quick-hit reservoir of data that you can use to answer questions that come rolling in to the city desk or to fill holes in the copy you're editing. Use something like the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com) for that. Instead, let this be an online tipster for some of those youth-oriented stories the publisher keeps asking for. Popcrazy isn't the library. No, it's more like the ten-minutes-before-the-bell conversations in middle school study hall. So, hey, eavesdrop, dude.

For instance, have you heard of The A*Teens? Bet your daughter has. After all, these four Swedish teens have been trotting the globe since last year, singing their hearts out on a series of ballads and party tunes. "The lyrics of the new album," writes Popcrazy's Meredith Riley in an online review, "range from nonsensical ('I'll be waiting just around the corner of your eye') to borderline icky ('You're the sweetest thing I've ever tasted'). Even though it lacks real instruments in the songs, this is still the perfect album to put on when you're down, or when you're on your way to the gym and need to get pumped up."

Other considerations for using Popcrazy in your work:

1. If you write about the site, you might want to alert your readers to the site's frequent visit-participation features. For instance, at this writing, the site invited users to submit "pop haikus." Sample? "Surreal Life would rock/If we could vote Jerri off/and Corey whined less."

2. Need even more Popcrazy in your life? Your entertainment writers might want to sign up for the site's free e-mail updates.

3. Also fun for your readers is the site's "Second-hand Celebrity" section, in which visitors share stories about the famous folks they have met in their travels. Reach the section by clicking on the "Features" link at the top of the main screen.

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