There’s One Internet Forum That Won’t Host Threads About Sasha, Malia, or Other Celebrity Children
Miracle of miracles, there
is restraint on this here Internet. Recently, a thread for Sasha and Malia Obama on
the Fashion Spot emerged in my RSS feed (this was before the flurry of publicity over
how they looked at the Christmas in Washington concert on Sunday). I clicked into the feed and: access denied.
The Fashion Spot's managing director, Dana Glazer, explains that the ten-year-old site has a strict policy on who gets covered in the user-generated threads, which is arguably the most comprehensive forum resource for magazine editorials, advertising campaigns, and news about industry figures and fashion-forward celebrities.
While those forums might feel completely insane and eerily obsessive, they are carefully policed by the site's moderators. Threads about celebrity children, like the Obama girls, are not allowed. Forum topics are limited to celebrities who are 14 years and older, though exceptions are made for people like Elle Fanning, who regularly wears labels like Rodarte and Louis Vuitton and has established just the sort of style sense the site aims to cover.
The policy came about not just for legal reasons, but also to preserve the privacy of kids who may not have chosen to become fashion people.
Also, Glazer adds, "Fashion is a term that's used really loosely these days." It's true: just think of all the random celebrities with "fashion" lines.