What Tila Did Next....

I love the internet.

I have loved it since we first met in 1993. My gleaming Macintosh classic whirring up, dialling into a world of Geo-cites, HTML chat, news groups and even shopping online was exciting. It seemed all things were possible. Of course with possibility there is darkness. The chat rooms filled with dirty old men, the underground of violence and terrorist threat grew like a cybernetic monster, and the ability to crush someone ego/soul/value at the touch of an anonymous button was ever present. The recent advent of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and blogs like this one seem to attract all walks of life. From the witty naysayer to the deeply and very obviously mentally and emotionally disturbed.. I ask myself as I witnessed the horrific emotional trainwreaks on the ride of this voyeuristic self-media, do I stop and stare? Do I ring the internet emergency services? Or do I sit back, grab my popcorn and chew through the most stressful bits?

Recently I decided to sign up for Twitter. I thought it might be interesting to try and find my own voice in a few clever sentences. Sadly, I think my teenager was right when he read my Tweets. He labelled it an “utter fail”. What I did find was as fascinating as any sociology thesis I have ever read, albeit in 40 characters or less.

Raise your hand if you have heard of Tila Tequila. Anyone? No? Nor had I. Enter a short article on another blog site, a click of my mouse, and I am sent racing through the innerwebs to the never-never land of Tila's Twitter-shaped rabbit hole.

I will give you some brief and slightly compelling history. Tila Tequila ( birth name Nguyen) is an internet sensation, or rather was. In the hay day of the My Space social network, she added over 1 million “friends”. She was a sexy little minx that threw not only caution, but quite often her underpants to the wind. In 2006 Nguyen scored herself a silly little reality show called "A Shot At Love" for MTV. Tila it seemed, had the nefarious world of reality television and it's fans at her spiked stiletto wearing feet. Did I mention she was also in a show called Dance Off With Your Pants Off?

And then something broke.

Tila Nguyen was born in Singapore to French Vietnamese parents who immigrated to the United States after the Vietnam war. The youngest of 3 children, Nguyen often refers to her childhood as rough and disjointed, and freely admits to a drug problem by the time she was just 16. Tila often talks about the one room she shared with her family and the poverty they endured in her native Texas. But then then things changed. Tila was spotted at a car show and recruited as a model by a talent scout from California. She rose to fame not as much as a Phoenix, but a slow burning rumour. And then came the internet.

“Haters” are a phenomenon that seem to come with internet celebrity. “Famous for being famous” seems to be tantamount to drawing a bullseye on your ass and screaming "Lock and Load!" to the thousands who feel the receiver of such fame is undeserved and unworthy. Nguyen seems to be in the sights of those “haters” and boy are the ready to aim and fire.

What brings on such rage? What could stir such ire onto a 4 foot 10 waif of a thing whose only crime seemed to be her utter lack of viable talent? Even Paris Hilton gets a pass, and I think it is safe to say her talent is pouting in the right direction at the right time. And with no sex tape to her name, how bad could she be?

Enter Casey Johnson.

Casey Johnson, the deceased heir to the Johnson and Johnson fortune was a Hollywood scene favourite. Not ever truly famous herself, she would continually sit on the cusp of the infamous. She rejected and then regretted the Nicole Ritchie half of the Paris Hilton reality show, The Simple Life. She cavorted and partied and dressed like a star, sadly in her nadir she imploded.

Like many children born to privileged families, Casey seemed to be an oxymoron. She had it all and equally, she had nothing. In the last days of her life she was virtually broke, and had little contact with her family. Her adopted daughter was taken from her by her own mother as it became clear that Casey could not care for Casey, much less a vulnerable child . Rumours of drug use were rife and many of her friends were unsurprised by her passing whilst suffering a diabetic coma. Unsurprised does not in any case mean saddened and mournful at the loss of a ostensibly lovely and loved young women. Lovely, but deeply troubled.

And Tila Tequila loves trouble. She states in her MySpace profile that she is “drawn to fucked up people”. And it seems that at the end of her life, Casey was as fucked up as they come. They met in Los Angeles and both reported to initially dislike each other intensely. Tila was an outsider, a reality star, not to the manor born.

Although Casey was not officially “out”, her bisexual tendency's led her to the door of Courtenay Semel, another heir to the throne of a powerful family and a childhood friend. Courtenay is the self reported Don Juan of the Lesbian world, and seems to have had her fingers in a lot of dramatic pots. Even in the pot of Tila Tequila at one point.

Semel and Johnson carried on a rather passionate and sometime vicious relationship. Courtenay allegedly even went as far as setting Casey's hair on fire in a more volatile argument. At one point, (and my research cannot pinpoint exactly when) Tila and Casey seem to hook up after another dramatic fall out with Semel. Some speculate that the coupling was a revenge tactic, as Semel is reported to dislike Tila like some of us dislike stepping in dog mess.

Johnson and Tequila were a recipe for disaster.

In late November of 2009, after less then a month as a couple,Casey and Tila made appearances and statements announcing their engagement to the world. In the live stream on Tila's website, one can see that Casey is unwell. She looks drawn yet overdone in a caricature of make-up and trashy underwear. She barley speaks as Tila rambles on about canary diamonds, being “wifey” to an heiress and having babies. Tila becomes a Machiavellian figure, prompting Casey when her eyes seems to become unfocused and her head too heavy for her shoulders. It is heartbreaking to watch. But to my shame, watch I did.

Around Christmas,2009, the downfall of Tila Nguyen is set in stone as days and days of sleepless and incoherent Tweets start to rain down on us. Tila claims she is going to Texas without her “wifey” to see her family, and in the visit she is to become a surrogate mother for her brothers unborn child. She flies out of LA and days later amongst hundreds of irrational Twitter updates Tila announces to the world that Casey Johnson is dead. The Johnson family had yet a breath to take in the face of this unthinkable and tragic outcome. But Twitter knows.

Most of us find the death of a partner unthinkable and utterly ghastly. Most of us also deal with these kinds of tragedies in private. But this is a Tila Special.

After the death of Casey, Tila becomes more and more bizarre. Her tweets, blogs and web streams range from Tila being the future ambassador to Vietnam, to being pregnant by a man she describes a war hero, then back to her brother's surrogate, then veers left to a mixed race sperm donor. She announces she will sign you, YES YOU, to her record label,is an angel of God, and then calls herself Jane in the third person. She dances with guns her mouth, makes a promise to adopt an orphan in Russia, and then decides she is not a lesbian at all and is going to marry her “baby daddy”.

Amongst all of this clear and present mental health crisis, bloggers start to assassinate her character. They set up pages to defame and disparage Tila. They call her a paedophile, a fame whore, a disgusting pig. They speculate on her recent trip to Australia. Did she fly first class? They call her a pathological liar. Is she pregnant at all? They screen capture her infamous televised bathroom rants, comparing her tummy to women at her same claimed gestation. They simply hate her.

Tila is clearly disturbed. One look down the rabbit hole and it is apparent someone has been having a go at the “Drink Me” potion. In the reality of the reality show of her life, I suspect she has a personality disorder of such great proportion that she is now delusional and in the fight of her life. Her need for attention is compelling because I imagine that the 300,000 people that follow her on Twitter simply can't get enough of the pop corn of her breakdown. If Tila Tequila is so compelling in her destruction, I also wonder what has happened to our compassion. Many people have to live with mental illness and never get the chance to ask for help, yet it seems to me that with every Tweet, Tila is begging to be loved, asking to be saved, imploring the Universe embrace her shattered sense of self.

Sadly, the medium through which she communicates this desire ultimately fails her. It seems that even her assistant and management seems to collude with her undoing.

I sincerely hope that Tila gets her wish. Her fractured demons seem stronger then the angel she so desperately wants to be.