The day Perez Hilton spoke non-violence

Perez Hilton’s chickens have come home to roost. The blogger, who has made his name as a bitchy, no-holds-barred commentator, is now calling on high principle and moral rectitude to condemn an attack against his person.

According to Perez, he was accosted by the Black Eyed Peas’ Will.i.am at a celebrity party in Toronto. Will.i.am felt that he was being dissed by things that the blogger had been saying. Perez said he felt “threatened” by Will.i.am and in self-defense, referred to the singer as a “faggot,” flinging an insult that was sure to lacerate. In furtherance of the quarrel, Perez claims that Will.i.am’s manager later punched him in the face.

Through a video post on his website, Perez Hilton renders an impassioned rebuke of this “assault,” reminding the blogosphere that no one, regardless of how provocative or incendiary they are, should be hit. http://perezhilton.com/tv/index.php?ptvid=0cd5e5f27f759. He calls Will.i.am every name in the book. A viewer is left anxious of Perez using the one epithet that would make himself the indisputable moron.

Perez’ assertion that no one should ever be hit is correct. But this message bears a hard-to-swallow irony. With his daily 10 million plus hits, the blogger’s schtick is his shading of the rules and ability to piss people off. If the blogosphere is a jungle where anything goes, he is the reigning queen. More than most, Perez knows that there is rich reward for the shocking, tasteless and below-the-belt.

If we resist the call on sympathy for Perez Hilton, his stocks will still rise. His website is breaking with hits from surfers curious to witness this latest spectacle. Far from anything he said in his video post, Perez will not have reaffirmed any commitment to non-violent principles. Through incidents like this, he simply burnishes a claim as the unelected dean of blog pop.