Holy Moly

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Holy Moly
URL	http://www.holymoly.co.uk http://www.goalymoly.co.uk/
Commercial?	yes
Type of site	Entertainment News website
Registration	Optional
Available language(s)	English
Owner	Jamie East
Created by	Jamie East and site contributors
Launched	2002
Revenue	Unknown
Current status	Active

"Holy Moly" originated as a well-known exclamation by the Captain Marvel Comic-Book characters created in 1939 by artist C. C. Beck and writer Bill Parker. Those characters (and the expression "Holy Moly") first appeared in Whiz Comics #2 (February 1940) and Fawcett Comics (1939–1953) For details see (Captain Marvel Comics/en.wikipedia.org)

Holy Moly, often known as "HM", is an entertainment website and weekly email based in the UK, with similarities to Popbitch and B3ta. It publishes (often scathing) gossip items related to celebrities, notably Amy Winehouse, Kerry Katona, Tom Cruise and Paris Hilton. The website's scoops often appear shortly after publication in the gossip pages of British tabloids such as The Sun and the Daily Mirror. Due to the nature of the content Holy Moly has occasionally been threatened with legal action, for example from ex-Eastenders actor Chris Parker ^[1].

The identity of the creator remained a secret for sometime, but in 2008 he was revealed to be Jamie East.^[2]^[3] Furthermore, the MediaGuardian website claims that the gossip is "supplied by an army of around 100 industry insiders".^[4] In November 2007, Sky News' James Silver interviewed East^[5] - the interview revealed that he had started the website on a secret laptop whilst working at Sky News. In February 2008, he appeared on Channel 4's chat show The Richard & Judy Show, attacking photos of celebrities^[6] like Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse and Heather Mills-McCartney and declaring that these paparazzi are damaging the business^[7].

[edit] Other sections

As well as the main section, there are other sections of the website, including:

The Corner^[8] (previously known as "Cunt's Corner") - users complain with a short comment about anything which they dislike or annoyed by. Originally just for celebrities (example: "Gordon Ramsey - for having a head like a cauliflower") but now features more varied entries such as "Perfume adverts on TV" and "Heat magazine".
The Heroes^[9], previously "Sacred Cows" - added more recently; opposite to the Corner in that users talk positive, again about celebrities and other things.
Rules of Modern Life^[10] - users contribute non-serious "rules" which tend to be statements or irreverent advice to groups of people. For example: "Nobody in London listens to Radio 1" and "Right now there is a bloke in Essex on the phone to his supplier in China trying to cancel his order of 10,000 st George flags for cars" (sic). The latter is a reference to the England football team failing to qualify for Euro 2008.
HM Approved^[11] - launched to display a "nice" side to Holy Moly, HM Approved is a collection of products, films, songs etc that Holy Moly thinks is users will like (example: Guinness Marmite, Lost, Lupe Fiasco).
Back On The Druggs Agaone!^[12] - A parody of the Molesworth books written from the perspective of Pete Doherty.
HM.TV^[13] - An Internet TV Channel encompassing all off the video-content created by HolyMoly, mainly irreverent interviews conducted by Matt Edmondson.

[edit] Goaly Moly

This is a spin-off website ^[14] from the same team, focusing on football. This has similar features to the main site, namely Kuntz Korner, Rules of Sporting Life and Sacred Cows. It is currently dormant but is said to be relaunching later on in 2008.