Heather and Jessica, the viciously funny duo, run one of the ‘must-visit’ websites on the web. To find out why, Go Fug Yourself and let us know if their blog not one of the top entertainment web-stops!

Tell us about yourself / your team.
HEATHER: I’m a born Texan who left at age 5 and moved around fairly consistently the rest of my life, most formulatively to England. I think some of the British shows, like Blackadder and Monty Python, were big influences on my sense of humor. I adore Diet Coke, I’m a total carnivore, and if I had to choose between sugar and salt, I’d pick salt every time. Potatoes are one of the world’s most perfect foods and the potato chip is a thing of beauty.
JESSICA: I grew up in Los Angeles, and graduated from UCLA. I spend a lot of time reading magazines, watching the collected works of Aaron Spelling, and wishing I knew how to make a decent margarita at home.

What is your blog about?
HEATHER: We poke fun at celebrity fashion, and at the carefully orchestrated images put out there for our consumption by these people and their teams. We don’t care for being spoon-fed people like Sienna Miller and asked to worship what she wears just because she’s famous. And we get cranky about it.
JESSICA: And sometimes we use celebrity fashion as a way to talk about other celebrity news — who’s dating whom, who’s starring in what, who’s flashing which body part.

How did you get started?
HEATHER: Jess has been one of my best friends for six years now. We were hanging out at the mall one day talking about a movie poster and how all the actors on it looked awful, and it became a joke about how for the kids these days, fugly is the new pretty. Then, just for kicks, we created a blog to document this trend, figuring nobody would ever read it but our friends and not even really counting on it being a lasting thing. There was no plan; it just sort of happened. But it amused us, and somewhere along the line, I guess we started amusing other people too.
JESSICA: Early on, we ended up getting thrown some links from Defamer.com, which really helped us get more traffic, and it’s kind of grown from there.

What is the source of your content?
HEATHER: We pay for the rights to use the photographs, which are the starting points for all our entries. Whatever we say just comes from our personal opinions, often colored by whatever’s been happening with them lately or whether they’ve been in the tabloids.

How frequently do you write / post?
HEATHER: Every day. Obviously with a focus as narrow as ours, it’s tough to do 12 posts a day, but we always strive to do two each if we can. Back when we had day jobs, we were lucky if we managed one post in all, so I consider a total of four a day to be a pretty nice pace.
JESSICA: We do take the weekends off, though — unless something crazy happens, like Britney shaves her head or gets married. Which are the only two events to date which have prompted us to post on a Saturday.

How does your blog generate revenue?
HEATHER: Through the sale of advertisements, which started in 2005. Photos are expensive, which is why we did it.

Who visits your blog? Tell us a little bit about your readers.
HEATHER: Honestly, we’re not sure. I keep thinking it’s the standard 18-35 demographic, but we get a surprising number of emails from older women and men as well, so it’s tough to say. But there’s definitely no age limit on thinking celebrity fashion is insane, so realistically we could be appealing to anyone. But I’d imagine we get the most hits from like-minded people who enjoy gossiping about the celeb world yet don’t quite buy into all of it, and also need to procrastinate at work.

Do you consider yourself successful in blogging? If so, what do you think “success” is, as far as blogging is concerned?
HEATHER: I think anyone who’s conveying their point of view in a voice that’s true to who they are is a success in blogging. I don’t think it needs to be measured in hits or page views. If you’re happy with the way you’re achieving what you set out to do, then that should be your only metric. So I definitely think we’ve succeeded in what we’re doing.
JESSICA: I think we’ve also accomplished a lot through this blog that we never anticipated or expected, which has been really great.

Do you have another job?
HEATHER: Nope. Well, not in the traditional sense. Jess and I both quit working our day jobs at the end of last summer, but have since taken freelance work we’ve gotten through the site — for instance, we write a weekly piece for New York magazine’s Web site, and we’ve been occasional contributors to In Touch magazine and the British version of Grazia (a glossy). We also just finished a book based on the site. So we work on other writing assignments, but they’re all work we do as representatives of GFY. The blog is still our bread and butter, though. We know that without it, these other opportunites wouldn’t have happened, so we consider that our primary job. And we’re thrilled to be working on it full-time.

Any advice, suggestion, tips or a message for other bloggers?
HEATHER: I would argue against creating a blog just for the sake of it, or just to try and make cash off it. Because unless you have a really foolproof idea, it may show if you’re not fully committed to it or are in it for the notoriety. Do it because you have something to say, and you can entertain yourself and make yourself happy with the way you’re saying it. People are smart, and they can tell if you’re not fully committed to what you’re doing, or not really enjoying it.
JESSICA: Yeah, whatever you’re writing about, make sure it’s something that entertains and truly interests you, or the daily grind of updating will become — I imagine — a total slog, and you’ll eventually peter out. My other advice would be to update regularly if you can, if you’re blogging for a readership, because people want to know you’ll have new content on whatever regular basis you’ve established.

You have a loyal reader base. What sets you apart from other fashion blogs?
HEATHER: Probably the fact that we’re a hybrid fashion blog and celebrity blog. We’re not really getting into the high fashion commentary, which can sometimes feel inaccessible to people who don’t track that industry (at least, that’s how I often feel about it) and don’t care whether a collection is derivative or not. And we’re not competing with other sites who are breaking news. The experience of reading our site, I think, is akin to hanging out with your girlfriends and passing around Us or In Touch or Star, and cracking on what’s inside — the outfits, the stiff public statements, the intimate moments caught on camera either by design or by surprise, etc. In a sense, it’s like this: We’re not where you go to find out the news — we’re the people you make fun of it all with over a bottle of wine.

Would you like to add anything else?
HEATHER: Just that we’re really grateful people keep reading. We’re still having fun with it, so it’s immensely gratifying to know that other people have fun with it, too.
JESSICA: And thanks for featuring us!

Please let us know what you think of this dynamic duo and their blog via comments below.

Tags: Go Fug Yourself, Gossip Blog, Celebrity Fashion, Entertainment

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