It was a standard-issue celebrity crush.
It was 2006, Brokeback Mountain was inspiring critical acclaim and late night talk show jokes alike--and there was Becky Heineke, thinking Jake Gyllenhaal was looking pretty good.
She was twenty-four, two years out of college, and had nothing better to do ... which is how she wound up joining a girl she'd never met to write a blog called Jake Watch.
Over the blog's nineteen-month run, there were movie premieres, a movie script, a legitimately stupid Internet rumor (accidental), one highly unsuccessful presidential campaign, a lost puggle, and a T-shirt business that may or may not have violated international copyright laws.
But Jake Watch also aged its two writers more than its life span might suggest. While countless books have been written about celebrities, blogs, and the impact of the Internet on our changing culture, there hasn't, until now, been a book that exemplifies their influence on the first generation to grow up obsessed with all three. I'm Stalking Jake! is a memoir unique to the age in which it was written, a comedy about the drama of growing up and reaching out in the era of Internet addiction and celebrity infatuation.
It was 2006, Brokeback Mountain was inspiring critical acclaim and late night talk show jokes alike--and there was Becky Heineke, thinking Jake Gyllenhaal was looking pretty good.
She was twenty-four, two years out of college, and had nothing better to do ... which is how she wound up joining a girl she'd never met to write a blog called Jake Watch.
Over the blog's nineteen-month run, there were movie premieres, a movie script, a legitimately stupid Internet rumor (accidental), one highly unsuccessful presidential campaign, a lost puggle, and a T-shirt business that may or may not have violated international copyright laws.
But Jake Watch also aged its two writers more than its life span might suggest. While countless books have been written about celebrities, blogs, and the impact of the Internet on our changing culture, there hasn't, until now, been a book that exemplifies their influence on the first generation to grow up obsessed with all three. I'm Stalking Jake! is a memoir unique to the age in which it was written, a comedy about the drama of growing up and reaching out in the era of Internet addiction and celebrity infatuation.
