This Wired feature on the multi-media conglomeration that is Perez Hilton is, well, eye-opening. For one thing, the site makes $54,000 in ad money a day. A DAY! That is serious bucks for photoshopping cum on people's faces. And Perez is branching out into clothes, music, and television because (hear this!) he's always working.

Actually we believe that Perez works, and if he can grab the bucks, more power to him. It's all in the service of meeting his goal to become the gay, latino Oprah. Really, we can't talk shit on Perez cause then we'd have no excuse for paying attention to him, and unfortunately, we're not about to stop gawking at the dude and his totally inexplicable success. Lucky for us we're not the only ones who follow the hot mess.  

When he announced on his site, incorrectly, that Fidel Castro was dead (Hilton's family fled Cuba for Florida in the '60s), the Huffington Post and the Drudge Report picked up the item (albeit with skepticism). When Bloomberg invited him to be its guest at this year's White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, he was seated next to Tracey Ullman, who gushed, "I read your site every day!" For his LA-based novel, Bright Shiny Morning, author James Frey interviewed Hilton and modeled the character of a flamboyant gossip monger on him.

The man is a shooting star of fast food wrappers and unicorn tears. Respect.