Trends of The Day

Some blogs report that Arissa-Luna was the model for "Dawn Yang" right down to the very poses Arissaluna assumed in photos on her now-restricted website!

Y'all know how the Mainstream Media works: If they see something THEY can use to make MONEY with, they'll run with it. In the USA some corporations now have blogs and bloggers "seeded" through the blogosphere. This could be a political blog, a teen blog, a Goth blog... any kind. As the blog grows and readership develops (thanks to a STAFF assigned to complete links, dispatch emails, etc.) SUDDENLY a cause, or a product appears on that blog, and THAT is what the blog is REALLY all about: Marketing!

Not too long ago, Wendy Cheng's blog out of Singapore got a little publicity from the kind folks at Blogger, and took off like a rocket! Wendy, smart gal that she is, parlayed her blog into more than she herself probably thought it could ever be, taking her beloved blogders along for the ride of their lives. BIG COMPANIES have seen this. They've seen Wendy develop relationships with sponsors and harvest endorsements. Wendy has certainly taken the ball and run with it!

Fortunately (for you and I), BIG COMPANIES didn't create Wendy... her Mom & Dad did! So now, these companies, who deeply desire a piece of the XiaXue pie, are artificially creating "blog celebrities" to fill this need. I received several emails in the last 24 hours about this, including one from an anonymous "insider" who claims Dawn Yang (or Yeo, whatever) and another girl who goes by the name Arissaluna have actually been "created" and that one was created by a firm with the understanding she is their trademark, while the other is to be used to market products to teenaged girls in the near future.

The first thing that has to be done to make a marketing campaign successful is to create BUZZ. The PR people have done this remarkably well, and may have even enlisted the help of some bloggers who have an axe to grind with XiaXue. The PR "war" is being waged on two fronts: first, there's Dawn Yang, who, like XiaXue, has been photoshopped, but in Dawn's case, she's been permanently changed and turned lily-white. The Orient has been cut away from her eyelids. She's a real big deal. One thing about Ms. Cheng: I've seen non-photoshopped pictures of Wendy without a lot of makeup: she is a very attractive woman! She could do well without the embellishments, but, y'know, everybody loves garnish! Her PR company has already placed Technorati tags hailing Yang as "the next Pop Star." Hmmm...

Yang is signed with Tinsel Management, which reportedly plans to groom her for acting, singing and advertising opportunities in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China... "... When Ms Melissa Lam, director of Tinsel Management, visited Dawn's blog for the first time after countless recommendations, 'the captivation factor became clear'. 'She was an ordinary girl with an extraordinary face,' said Ms Lam, who believes that the next wave of stars will come from the Internet..." (UH-HUH, wink wink!) Well, I DO know that the plastic surgery industry just got a LIFT!

The BUZZ has only just begun for "Arissaluna," (the second front) the girl who some say was the facial features model for the plastic surgery required to transform Dawn Yang. After building a following by being featured on "blog competition" sites and by paid advocates dropping little phrases like "guys, prepare to drool" on message boards and comments sections of blogs, the PR folk have kicked it up a notch by restricting access to he blog to "members" -- read that as in collecting data for future marketing campaigns!

More food for thought: in two of the emails I received, the writers believe that arissaluna and Dawn are the same person! I'm not ready to discount anything at this point! If you don't think for one minute the media loves a good hoax, you don't know your JTLeRoy about PR!