Hate football? Play in a celeb fantasy league.

Arjun Gray

01 February 2010

Pictures Regina H Boone / Detroit Free Press / MCT Mandy MacNeil, 37, left, Kristin Durand, 34, center, and Mary Klott, 36, all players of US Weekly Fantasy League, examine the pages of US Weekly to discover if their picks are in the mag. In the fantasy league that Oakland Township, Mich.s Mandy MacNeil runs, its about which is more valuable, an It Girl or a Heartthrob. Show, all of a sudden was a ratings bonanza, MacNeil would notice. MacNeil, a 37-year-old mum of 3, is a part of a budding trend. Fafarazzi runs fantasy games that track reality-TV shows like Project Runway and Dancing With the Stars, as well as straight celebrity leagues, where users draft a team and earn points whenever their players are discussed in a lengthy list of celebrity blogs and magazines. In MacNeils league, twelve groups play mano-e-mano every week for roughly ten weeks. Points are calculated for photos that run in the gossip mag. Like fantasy soccer, each team has a hand-selected name ; MacNeils is the genuine Housewife of OT. 5 male and 5 female celebrities make up each team, and the owners typically MacNeils neighborhood buddies held a draft to choose them. The entry fee is $25, and the winner gets $200. I started taking a look at old Us Weeklys to see who was often in there, announces MacNeil, who works as a pharmaceutical sales rep. I saw they targeted on certain groups the youngsters from The Hills, The Gossip Girls. I didnt even know who they were because theyre just out of my demographic. The contest is 2nd to the social activity of it, Galloway says.

Professor Jerry Herron, who teaches modern American culture at Wayne State College in Detroit, asserts he sees the games as innocuous fun and a technique for folks to interact in a world in which they're otherwise passive clients. Put simply, You make Kim Kardashian work for you, he asserts.

Were told a way to look, the way to grin, whose body is the ideal whose lips are good, how to fill in the blank, Herron says. This makes it possible for folk to interact in a private way and goof around in the celebrity world. It lets folk into the attention equipment that makes it frolicsome and purposeful. We intend to review the report and take acceptable action.