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Showbiz Online: Showbiz Netizens On The Rise - Part 1
Many from the party-hardy world of showbiz no doubt share Gelli's sentiments. Even so, more and more are beginning to realize that in the information age, networking no longer means just table-hopping at the right parties and schmoozing with the players. There's now Net-working - i.e. hooking up on the Internet and building a site on the World Wide Web. Considering that the Internet is only three years old in the Philippines, with anywhere from 100,000 to 180,000 current users, it shouldn't be surprising that Tinseltown Manila is just beginning to catch on. The Filipino search engine EDSA (www.edsa.com.ph) lists about 75 Filipino celebrities with Web sites to their name, ranging from Lea Salonga to Boogie Bugayong. Now if a struggling actor like Boogie can have a Web page along with several other Star Circle up-and-comers like Andrea Blaesi and Farrah Florer, why shouldn't Gelli have her own? Early this year, the actress put up "Gelli de Belen. The Official Home On The Web" (www.stormviz.com/gelli), with the help of Ronnie T. Miranda of Storm Visualization & Imaging. She says that Ronnie first pitched her the idea last year. "But, it wasn't really very important to me that. I was thinking, "What will I get out of it?" Gelli then began hanging around the Web sites of pop stars Janet Jackson and Suzanne Vega. The sophisticated design and the load of information helped change her mind. "I started thinking that maybe I can use it for work - parang resume na high tech," she says.
Likewise, the potential of job offers from here and abroad is what's motivating another actress, Donita Rose, to improve her home page (www.cnl.net/~donita), which she put up with the help of the Internet serve provider Cybernet. A review of the site in the May/June 1997 issue of the magazine The Web Philippines found the pages wanting. Donita agrees: "It was too simple. There wasn't enough stuff in it - just some pictures and commercials which would take you 30 minutes to download. Even me, I'd get bored waiting for that." Right now, Donita is at work on a new site. In fact, I catch her at home for this interview just before she leaves for the Cybernet office, "I want to make this new one really good," she vows. "I'm listing down all my achievements and I'm being very careful with choosing only the best photos. I want my home page to make me look like an international star, so maybe I can get work abroad." Such as it is, her current Web page has already helped her land some shows and magazine features.
Comedienne Ruby Rodriguez has a completely different spin on the subject. While she does agree that a Web site is an ideal promotional tool, hers ( www.eris.com/~Mardi/RUBY.HTM) was put up for purely personal reasons. Two years ago, Ruby, her siblings, and other relatives, some of whom are based in the United States, began getting together in a chat room called The Tavern. They found it not just an exciting exploration of new technology, but also a practical way of keeping in touch. "We got to talk a lot without having to pay long-distance telephone bills," notes the Eat Bulaga co-host. This electronic family reunion inspired Ruby to build a site to update her US-based relatives and friends about her activities. She says, "Despite being a celebrity, I'm the most normal person you can meet. When I'm the most normal person you can meet. When I'm on my computer, I want to be just a normal, private person. Because even on the Web, when they know you're a celebrity, they start treating you differently." It follow that Ruby does not see her modest one-page site as a calling card, but more of a greeting card she sends, through cyberspace to her family and friends. Appropriately, Ruby's site was constructed with the help of her sister-in- law, who lives in the States. A Swedish friend she met online is building her another site. Despite her original intent, Gelli now echoes Ruby's sentiment: "What's really nice about my Web page is the guest book. I get in touch with friends from grade school and high school na matagal ko nang hindi nakikita, na nasa States na 'yung iba. They write to say hi. That's really one of the best things about it." |
Gelli de Belen is complaining that Dawn Zulueta sends her 10
jokes via e-mail a day. "She's really into computers," Gelli
says of her colleague. "E ako I'm not as into it as she is.
So binabasa ko lang `yung joke if the title's interesting
enough." Reminded of the Sandra Bullock character in the
movie The Net, an urban recluse who does all her transactions
through the Internet, Gelli protests with mock indignation:
"Hindi! I can't be like that. Hindi! I'll die!"