Gratuitously irascible Tara Ariano was a pioneer at using the Internet to profit from other creators’ free contributions and inflate pageview numbers. A career founded on recapping American TV shows reached such flower that she and husband David Cole sold Television Without Pity to Bravo, though without finally revealing why its name had been changed from the original MightyBigTV. (And did you know she was also Paul Tough’s secretary for a while?)
Selling out to New York is a dream come true for many local cranks, but it is a mountaintop on which few Torontonians have planted the Stars and Stripes. It became apparent to Ariano and Cole in August 2008 that they “wouldn’t be moving out of New York,” as though some kind of visa had been denied them. This was nearly a year after their “permanent place [became] ready,” though that period would have been your narrow window of opportunity to stare through their windows.
What does Ariano miss about Toronto? There’s a list of trifles, but here’s the nut: “[T]he plentiful Simpsons reruns on every channel.” Because that’s what Toronto’s got going for it.
Ariano isn’t a “success story,” like Tough; she is not a victim of tall-poppy syndrome. She’s something much simpler: A sellout. Shall we examine her terribly clever new minisite (revealingly enough, a Tumblr), entitled Look at This Fucking Idea for a Blog-to-Book Deal?
Indeed “your” money is stupid, because Ariano’s money always was and always shall be the greenback.
Was Tara Ariano ever Canadian? Or did she simply live here until, at long last, she could repatriate to the land where she always belonged?
The kind of people who – unaccountably – can stomach Ariano’s general ethos tend – also unaccountably – to offer her gigs. With her luck, Ariano is due to land Kate Lee as an agent. Then things will really go downhill.