Courtenay Semel, for those who are not familiar with her heiress-level fameballing, is not a shy and retiring person. A person does not make out with her attention-craving girlfriend Tila Tequila on red carpets because she mistrusts the media; a person does not scream at a club bouncer to "just fucking Google me, you dumb fuck" because she mistrusts the media; and a person certainly does not "joke" to a magazine reporter that "I'm kind of like the Don Juan of the lesbian world," as Semel did with Curve, because she mistrusts the media.

So it's odd that Semel would tell Curve that the "media kind of ruined that relationship" she had with Lindsay Lohan by saying the pair were dating. Semel added: "I can't even have a best friend because I guess I'm going to be linked with them next." But maybe she also can't have friends because she gives underminey quotes about them, like this one, from the new interview:

I think, you know, everyone scrutinizes, Lindsay for everything she went through, but they should thank her, because it shows you exactly what not to do.

That's a fairly cutting quote considering that Lohan has yet to enter rehab per Semel's urging. Of course, when Semel only went to rehab herself after her dad cut off access to the trust fund, something she left out of her little zinger. Semel, it would seem, grasps the advantages of strategic oversharing as well as the rest of her internet-bred generation; if only daddy Terry had been so savvy, Yahoo might be in a better place today.

[via People]

(Semel with heiress Casey Johnson this past May, top, via INF; Semel-Tequila pic, lower, via x17online.com)

Maybe Van Veen has been spending too much time with his purported bestie Ben Silverman, the former NBC executive who takes credit for the likes of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Weakest Link. Because we can't imagine Van Veen's media sugar daddy Barry Diller envisioned this sort of thing when he funded Van Veen's studio, Notional, four months ago. It's such a retro format for a "multi platform" studio that's supposed to be inventing the future. Here's some of what's slated:

• "READY, SET, DANCE!: In partnership with a major production entity, "Ready, Set, Dance!" is a first-of-its-kind dance competition series that seamlessly combines the web and television."
• "YOU VS. AMERICA: Currently in development, 'You vs. America' is a ground-breaking game show that innovatively combines the immediacy of the internet with the excitement of a network primetime television game show."
• "CHASE THE MONEY: "Chase the Money" is an epic scale reality game show that combines the pratfalls of a classic prank show with the simplicity of a child's game of 'Tag'."
• "LOVE TAXI: The dating show that takes place entirely in a taxicab. "

Actually, now that we think about it, the dancing one was probably Barry "Twinkle Toes" Diller's idea in the first place.

(Pic: Van Veen, by Zach Klein)

Johns Hopkins photographer Will Shepherdson, who shoots for the News-Letter student newspaper, sent us the above and below pics from the set of the forthcoming Facebook movie (click to enlarge). In the Aaron Sorkin-written film, co-founder and CEO Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg, sports such diverse outfits as a light grey Gap hoodie and the darker, logo-less gray hoodie below, also seen in earlier pictures of the filming.

When Eisenberg has his hoodie up and on his head, we'll know that's the scene where he's breaking into the dorm to steal student data while a couple makes out on the sofa.

(Pics: Will Shepherdson/Johns Hopkins News-Letter)

Pacific Coast News has snapped a picture of Timberlake on the set of The Social Network, the Facebook flick also staring Jesse Eisenberg as co-founder and current CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Garfield as spurned co-founder Eduardo Saverin. We've put the shot, above, next to a Jan. 2009 Getty picture of real-life Sean Parker. Timberlake's got the the curly hair down; with some highlights and that wardrobe he might pass for the 'N Sync version of himself from the late 1990s. Click to enlarge.

Timberlake picture by Pacific Coast News

Socketside heard Cruise was the buyer of an $18 million mansion in the ritzy Sea Cliff neighborhood. NBC Bay Area soon pointed out that, if that's true, Cruise's neighbors would be Robin Williams, Cheech Marin and the guitarist from Metallica. It's like the Bay Area's very own stunted little fog-swept Beverly Hills. But many locals will remember that the Church of Scientology was on the hunt for "apparent expansion" space starting in 2006, nosing around the once countercultural North Beach neighborhood.

So is Cruise, the alleged inspirer of Scientology beat-downs, spearheading a renewed expansion campaign by the cult to which he belongs? Maybe, or maybe said SF mansion is just being bought by another local tech exec like Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, per a SocketSite update:

Another reader quickly notes the mailing address for the purchasing LLC ("Tawaraya") is that of "a high-end accounting firm in Walnut Creek" which happens to advise Larry Ellison (amongst others). And The Real Estalker adds, "Tawaraya is a super posh and searingly expensive, 300-year old ryokan–which is essentially a Japanese bed and breakfast sort of place–located in Kyoto" which is rather Ellison-esque.

Oh great, more Larry Ellison dick waving. Don't we at least deserve some fresh megalomaniac mansion owners, out here?

Ad Age reports (via) that Silverman might take over CollegeHumor at the behest of Barry Diller, who bankrolls both CollegeHumor and Silverman's new online venture. Van Veen, meanwhile. is transitioning out of CollegeHumor and into his own Diller-funded media startup, Notional, which sounds a lot like Silverman's Electus (both have something to do with online video production).

We're told Silverman and Van Veen have been working very closely together and talking to each other every day. Perhaps a grander merger is in the works that would combine Electus, Notional and CollegeHumor into one venture. Silverman may have been ousted from old media, but he could still be lord of the new media flies. Especially within a venture that actually celebrates a refusal to mature, an inability to grow emotionally and a proclivity for partying to excess. Those are Ben Silverman's specialties, right there.

(Pics: via Getty, Webbyist)

Actors Jesse Eisenberg (Zuckerberg) and Andrew Garfield (Saverin), as well as director David Fincher were on the scene.

So were Twitter users Mary Spiro and Raluca Musaloiu, who stopped to take some photos.

Hm. Kind of looks like Harvard

Jesse Eisenberg (center) is playing Mark Zuckerberg

Andrew Garfield (left) plays forgotten Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin

Mark Zuckerberg built Facebook in fall 2004, so the fall weather is historically accurate

Actual Johns Hopkins students woke to a funny site out their dorm windows

Nice camera

Leaving the dorm…

The guy on the right is probably director David Fincher, who also made Fight Club

Where Justin Timberlake? He plays Facebook's first president, Sean Parker, who wouldn't appear in scenes taking place at Harvard

Earlier today, a large number of hard-core Twitter dorks — sorry, "influencers!" — noticed DeGeneres was following their accounts. Many were flattered, followed back and tweeted about it. "I am looking fwd to being a guest... now that she is following me," one wrote. But DeGeneres wasn't making friends; she was on a rampage. Near the start of the spamming, she was following 6,100, according to the notification one influencer received after DeGeneres followed him (see below, with the name changed). Within a couple of hours, she was up to nearly 6,700.

How did DeGeneres suddenly find 600 geeks to follow? Closely-watched Silicon Valley blogger and marketing specialist Louis Gray figured out the answer: Lists. Of the many lists already out there, the most popular include several lists of "influencers" and "thought leaders" and so forth. In other words: A celebrity twitterer's social media "consultant's" dream, and an effective way to load up on followers without following just anyone. DeGeneres' need friends just happen to line up with those on the top lists. Go figure!

It's one thing for everyone to be famous for 15 minutes. But it's starting to look like everyone will be a fame broker for a period, too, on the internet. Maybe channeling fame will pay better than obtaining it.

The move creates a fabulous new ladder of ascent for aspiring young dreamers looking to scale the heights of the LA swanky cocktail party-centric web journalism.

The Grazer Cultural Attaché slot is one of Hollywood's most-fabled sinecures. The job as it, has been described, focuses around bringing in the great thinkers of the land to meet with the greatest producer of our times for a free-wheeling meeting of the minds. Past great minds wrangled over the years are said to include Jonas Salk, Edward Teller and author Malcolm Gladwell as well as less renowned professors and thinktank dwellers who've been wheedled into showing off their knowledge wares beneath Grazer's Beverly Hills throne.

While the responsibility of genius-wrangling has been traditionally assigned to a one (or in recent months, a couple) Imagine employees, former workers describe the process as consuming the entire office, with all employees brainstorming and submitting a list of names for Grazer himself to whittle down.

In May of last year, when Brad Grossman, Grazer's former CA stepped down, an email seeking his successor was widely circulated and reported on. The email contained the following job description:

This person would be responsible for keeping Brian abreast of everything that's going on in the world; politically, culturally, musically... They're also responsible for finding an interesting person for Brian to meet with every week... an astronaut, a journalist, a philosopher, a buddhist monk... There is LOTS of reading for this position! Grazer may ask you to read any book he's interested in. You'll probably get to read about 4 or 5 books a week and you may be required to travel with him on his private plane to Hawaii, New York, Europe-teaching him anything he asks you about along the way... You will also be provided with an assistant... Salary is around $150,000 a year... You will be to Grazer what Karl Rove was to Bush.

The task of finding his own "architect" however, finding a mind worthy of the being his personal Karl Rove, may have been too much for the The Klumps producer. Grazer gave an interview to, ironically, to the Huffington Post last December in which he claimed himself attaché-free. He said:

That was sort of a joke title. I've been out meeting different people, I have a record, for 24 years, of meeting someone every two weeks. It helps inform your filter and hopefully informs your taste. I don't have anyone that's doing that for me right now. I use a couple of my assistants and I just say 'hey, can I meet so-and-so' and then we work on it or I'll call them myself, but I don't have a person that does that any longer.

Considering to whom he was speaking, Grazer may just have been wanting to hide his attaché from Arianna's potentially poaching claws. Whether the title was formally bestowed upon him or not, sources tell us that Silverman, who had been Grazer's assistant, was in fact acting in the Karl Rovean role. For a cultural attaché to leap out of that heady role after little more than a year at most, seems a bit abrupt, but perhaps once you have tasted the air at those heights, it is hard not to climb ever higher, right into the eagle's nest of all showbiz self-congratulation, The Huffington Post.

Rowland apparently started something called Project Migration this past summer. The organization sells products "made by single mothers in Africa;" proceeds ostensibly help improve their water supply and health care. And, what do you know, this effort just happens to require a professional photo shoot starring one Hilary Rowland (see attached video), which the sometime model just happened promote to her public Facebook wall:

(We're not sure what the reference to Rowland being "haunted by" porn purveyor Vivid Entertinament is about, though that comment makes us especially curious about her past.)

This isn't Rowland's first brush with chairty; though she is best known for posting pictures of herself with various celebrities on Facebook, and for being the rumored girlfriend of celebrity actors like Adrian Gernier and James Woods, she's long participated in various charity events, emphasis on "events" (one "Mexico Summit" observer: "they handed shoes out to little brown kids...in between cocktails"). Her day job consists of repurposing Glamour and MSN articles for her fake fashion magazine, "Hilary." Perhaps an article about Project Migration is in order. Don't forget the photos!

Arianna Huffington has allowed her editors to run ultra-close ups of the aging body of Vogue's Anna Wintour ("what does she really look like?") and now actresses Lindsay Lohan ("unedited" and splotchy) and Elizabeth Hurley (a bit sweaty). It's a case of her unprofitable company's need for monetizable, non-political Web traffic (read: cheap celebrity clicks) running headlong into Huffington's need to suck up to celebs, who write for her site and come to her parties and help her seem very glamorous.

We won't lecture Huffington on her company's too-often-shoddy attempts to make money in the online publishing racket. At least, not in this post. But we will keep her honest: If Huffington is going to run unedited pictures of others, it's only fair there should be some unedited pictures of her out there.

Click any of the images below to pop-up large, hi-res versions. (Warning, this may slow down your web browser and ruin your lunch.) We've played by HuffPo rules: Posed, red carpet pictures with no editing. We've also excerpted a highlight, as Huffington did with Wintour.

UPDATE: Jessica Wakeman at The Frisky notes that the first chapter of Huffington's book On Becoming Fearless is about positive body image. Plastering someone's picture on HuffPo is certainly one way to nudge that person toward becoming "fearless."

Here's how The Twitter World Works, according to Kaus: Twitter needs celebrities on its service to attract millions of new users every month or quarter or whatever. Celebrities, in turn need adoring fans, but (key point) have very fragile egos. So Kaus suspects Twitter of keeping a secret team of interns in a back room somewhere, poring over the massive stream of tweets directed at celebrities, and deleting the mean nasty tweets from search.twitter.com. The offending tweets still appear on Twitter, but won't show up in search results.

Kaus knows this because he tweeted something mean about CNN president Jon Klein, and it never showed up in Twitter search. Plus, in Kaus' experience, searches on celebrity names "almost invariably turn up... pleasant comments." Pretty ironclad. Ahem.

But you know what? The conspiracy might just be real. (Cue sinister music.) Here's a chummy little conversation between Twitter CEO/co-founder Ev Williams (pictured above, left, with celebrity tweeter Michael Stipe) and known celebrity Alyssa Milano talking about Kaus' conspiracy theory. She called it "interesting," followed by Ev's slick — too slick! — non-denial denial of Kaus' allegations.

Williams could have knocked down Kaus' conspiracy allegations by simply saying "that's absurd" or somesuch. But he didn't. Now we're actually kind of intrigued, at Kaus' seemingly crackpot ideas. Tell us it ain't so, Twitter people. Or better yet confirm, preferably with a picture of your secret cabal of celebrity gladhanders.

(Top pic: via Ev Williams)

The novelist created the HBO series Bored to Death, starring Jonathan Schwartzman, but had nowhere to watch it the Sunday before last because he didn't own a TV. Insert your own "precious Brooklyn author eschews television" joke here if you like, but Ames insisted on Twitter he's "just very bad at shopping" and, in any case, had frantic fun watching his own show on other people's televisions for two weeks. Or at least that's how things seemed from his tweets.

And then HBO, where because they got tired, worried or charmed by Ames' Twitter begging, finally just bought him a set. Which, frankly is almost too perfect; we wouldn't put it past the network to set up the whole escapade as a publicity stunt targeted at the show's hipster target audience.

It's some comfort, then, that Ames has used Twitter as a cashless flea market before, offering free foreign editions of his books at a Carroll Gardens bar. That experiment didn't seem to go as well: One of us happened to drop by that night and Ames was there, but not one had yet come looking for his very pretty books. Apparently there are some giveaways even Twitter can't facilitate. Sorry, book lovers.

(Pic by mtkr on Flickr)

The university has notified students that Facebook movie The Social Network will be filming on campus next week (reproduced below). The scenes will be filmed almost entirely night, in keeping with the work hours of your typical campus computer nerd-slash-startup founder. Johns Hopkins says the filming won't be disruptive, but we're not so sure: The first student to take a picture of Jesse Eisberg as Mark Zuckerberg and upload it to Facebook might just create a black hole of social media meta-ness that will devour us all. Which is why you should send your pictures here, instead.

UPDATE: Bad news, Johns Hopkins students: A university spokesman wrote to let us know that "Justin Timberlake isn't a part of the Harvard-based scenes being shot here. As I understand it, his character comes into play when the story moves to the West Coast." Since Timberlake plays Silicon Valley investor/entrepreneur Sean Parker, that makes total sense. Sorry to get your hopes up. Jesse Eisberg isn't so bad, though!

[via Blackbook]

Citing a quote from Sorkin himself, The Playlist reports the cast includes Armie Hammer from Gossip Girl; model Dakota Johnson (who is Griffith's daughter); Max Minghella of Agora; and male model Josh Pence. This goes beyond lead actors Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake and Andrew Garfield, who were already confirmed.

A quick look at the cast members, with some thoughts on who some of the new people might be portraying (all pics by Getty Images unless otherwise credited):

UPDATE: We've updated the entires for Hammer, Song and Pence. UPDATE: And Mara.

esse Eisenberg plays founder Mark Zuckerberg. He's got the curly hair and geeky look down well enough.

Justin Timberlake plays early Facebook adviser and Napster co-founder Sean Parker. (Insert Parker photo by Andrew Mager on Flickr.)

Andrew Garfield plays spurned co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

Brenda Song, of the Disney Channel, would appear to be a shoo-in to play Zuckerberg's girlfriend Priscilla Chan. UPDATE: One tipster tells us Chan does not appear in the script but that Saverin is supposed to have an Asian girlfriend, so perhaps Song is taking on that role.

Whomever model Josh Pence is playing, he's definitely not part of the Silicon Valley tech scene. How about the Winklevoss twins, two Olympic rowers from Harvard who accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea for Facebook? UPDATE: That part is being played by Armie Hammer (see here). Perhaps Pence could be another Harvard kid?That would seem to work. Pic via Nous Model Management.

Dakota Johnson looks like the kind of girl you'd hope to meet during a night on the town in San Francisco. And Zuckerberg did escort that Victoria's Secret model away from a party there — at least according to author Ben Mezrich.

<pRooney Mara (The Winning Season) looks so downright nice. Zuckerberg's geek girl friend at Harvard, maybe? UPDATE: A tipster suggested Zuckerberg's sister Randi. Good call.Send us your guess.

Max Minghella — no idea who he might play. Thoughts?

Armie Hammer from Gossip Girl. UPDATE: He is playing the Winklevoss twins, Olympic rowers who sued Zuckerberg for stealing their idea for Facebook, according to a tweet from director Richard Kelly. Pic via

Heller doesn't disclose it in her Huffington Post article or bio, but she was until recently an editor at the site, we hear. A spokesperson for the website writes under a CityFile post that Heller is no longer with the company, but that hardly washes away a major source of bias. Then again, conflicts of interest are part of the magical fuel that helps drive the Huffington Post. No writer really works for free.

UPDATE: A tipster writes to inform us that, behind the A Small World firewall, Heller is still listed as editor in chief of A Small Magazine. The site has given the magazine less prominence on A Small World's home page, our tipster adds, after a "disastrous" article on "Young Power Couples," which prompted A Small World co-founder Louise Wachtmeister to comment as follows:

An all time low!

Not like the old days, discrete and understated.

I sadly state this and I am a co-founder of ASW .

I am embarrassed and want to state that I have nothing to do with this. If I was the editor, I would listen to feedback, not criticize it, and in some cases apologize to the members.

Louise

(Pic via Starworks)

Today, rumor has it that the first gag order has been issued; Mashable says Dreamworks inserted an anti-Twitter clause into Mike Myers and Cameron's Diaz's contract for their work on the fourth installment of the Shrek series, committing them, we presume, to keep all details of the upcoming cartoon off the social networking platform.

At first glance, the notion that anyone on Twitter would give a damn about details of Lord Farquaad or the talking donkey backstage hi-jinx seemed delightfully self-absorbed and misguided of Dreamworks. But on closer examination, with football games scores and weather news regularly trending on the site, perhaps viral media has reached such a saturation point that even fourth installments of over the hill children's cartoons are in danger from the new world. Can TMZ Girl be far behind?

On the other hand, Hollywood, is such a Draconian zero-tolerance approach really the best way to stir up excitement for a franchise that should have been put out of its misery several films ago? Maybe unfettered Twittering about Princess Fiona's wardrobe malfunctions are the one hope you have of stirring up a little enthusiasm.

There are a far-sighted handful of people in Hollywood who see the marketing potential of the micro-blogging tool, but the Hollywood Reporter writes today that the backlash has begun in earnest, with Twitter-controlling contracts being inserted into contracts across the ranks of showbiz.

They write:

A recent talent contract from Disney includes a new clause forbidding confidentiality breaches via "interactive media such as Facebook, Twitter, or any other interactive social network or personal blog."

Over at DreamWorks, a writer's deal cautions not to jump the gun on studio press releases via "a social networking site, blog or other Internet-type site." An agent spotted a talent deal with a stricture that forbids bashing any element of a production with social media.

The only question we have is why didn't this crackdown come sooner? Since DW Griffith first stepped off the train, Hollywood has devoted itself to one cherished goal that it has always kept close to its heart: making sure actors never, ever speak directly to the public. Since the first days of entertainment, no "talent" has ever opened their mouth without a phalanx of handlers on hand to craft their every word and prepared to lower the muzzle at the first sign of truth telling.

In recent times few celebrity interviews are conducted without a volume of "conditions" and "parameters" laid down in advance and a publicist in the room or on the phone line prepared to step in should a conversation show any signs of actual life.

With its Stalinesque vise over the media, stars and executives in Hollywood communicate in Orwellian newspeak, reciting a handful of approved phrases. "He was such an inspiration to work with," "It's a thrill to play a different kind of character" and "I've never been on a set where everybody had so much fun" marking the parameters of acceptable speech.

The industry, being staffed exclusively by teenage girls, loves rumors and gossip more than anyone, but nowhere in media is the ratio of what reporters know but can't report to what they can more out of whack. Any hints of conflict, malfeasance or turmoil are strictly buried in the official press, left for bloggers like Nikki Finke to guess at through the glass darkly from the placed tidbits of her official sources.

And then comes Twitter, and suddenly the entire structure of communication goes out the window. Stars having obscenity laced cat-fights with each other, revealing their contract negotiations to the whole world, directors joking about work stoppages on the set...

But on the brighter side, this is the one area where the old media news industry has led the way, having long since issued stern warnings to their employees that their Twitter lives are subject to the same absolute censorship and editor-controlled domination — aka "Zone of Trust" as all their other forms of speech.

Then again, they knew who they were hiring: A man who, as Gaunabee's Cindy Casares notes, has never been one to subsume his own professional impulses, masturbatory or not, to those of his colleagues. Gaunabee recorded copious footage from the event, some of which is excerpted above.

Although repeated in a number of colorful permutations, Stone's point was fairly straightforward: most consumers are tasteless boors; the internet allows these morons to upload video; therefore internet video is shit and will never be "Fine Art." That an overwhelming number of these vulgarians failed to go and see Stone's last movie, making it a surprise box office failure despite such memorable lines as "don't get cute Turdblossom," only further establishes Stone's credibility as an arbiter of good taste and Fine Art.

Weinstein Co. will offload its majority stake in ASmallWorld.net to mogul Patrick Liotard-Vogt, scion of the family that started Nestle Corp., sources tell the Times. There's no word on the price.

But there's every reason to think it will be depressed. A Small World was movie honcho Harvey Weinstein's first internet investment, and it soured quickly: Fully a year and a half ago, the VIP members were already complaining about emails pestering them to log on to the site and about the increased ads. Traffic has remained flat for years, while Facebook soared. The problem was fundamental: Rich guys don't want to socialize only with one another, and once you let in enough attractive young women and such your VIP site loses it cachet and everyone might as well just hang out on Facebook, which Metcalfe's law teaches us is exponentially more useful anyway.

Not that Weinstein suddenly realized any of this; he's cutting his losses only now that circumstances have forced him to, and probably at a fire-sale price. At least now he can focus on trying to save his flailing movie company. The members of a Small World have plenty of other ways to entertain themselves.