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Taylor Swift, Ryan Gosling, and 7 Other Celebrities Who Should Become Regular Guest Bloggers
Editor’s note: Yesterday, Contently Associate Editor Jordan Teicher wrote a ridiculous and epic post for our sister site, The Freelancer, about which celebrities should follow Taylor Swift’s lead and become regular guest bloggers. We’ve decided to repost it here, because what is celebrity guest blogging but great content marketing for their personal #brand?
Taylor Swift had a byline in The Wall Street Journal yesterday for an article about the future of music. We would love to know how much her ghostwriter got paid for the effort. But Swift’s unusual foray into freelance writing got us thinking—what celebrities would we love to see freelancing? And how ridiculous would their work be?
Snoop Dogg
Who better to become the voice of national marijuana legalization? Sure, he’d be overqualified to work as a High Times staff writer, but this man could be an expert in his freelancing niche. Not only would editors love working with him, but he’s constantly playing with creative language. He could write op-eds about the health benefits of marijuana for The New York Times, profile Colorado “apothecaries” for Rolling Stone, and evaluate pertinent paraphernalia for Wired. Plus, what writer would have an easier time scoring interviews with 420-friendly celebs?
Channing Tatum
Don’t let the I-can’t-spell vibe fool you—Tatum is getting a writing credit on the sequel to Magic Mike. As a former stripper, he also has plenty of experience working the gig economy.
Topics he could cover on a freelance basis: male models, Jonah Hill’s fluctuating belt collection, Nicholas Sparks novels, being the real-life Old Spice Guy. Even better—he’s into content marketing: After Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Volvo commercial came out last year, Tatum produced a spoof to promote 22 Jump Street. Can we get this guy a Contently profile already?
Matthew McConaughey
McConaughey is the type of freelancer who would write 5,000 words for The Atlantic on the musicality of his voice, describe it as “an affair between the pitter-patter of Robert E. Lee’s horse’s hooves and Gary Busey’s esophagus,” then take his paltry $100 check and buy bongos for the homeless. That’s really what life is about, right?
Jennifer Lawrence
J-Law would definitely write television criticism and bring every article for Vulture back to her time on The Bill Engvall Show. This is strictly a side job, and the 25 dollars per recap will be ammunition for her aw-shucks red carpet interviews. In between her 3,000-word essays about how the evolution of Turtle in Entourage relates to America’s obsession with body image, we’d love to read Lawrence’s thoughts on casting updates for the second season of True Detective.
Ryan Gosling
I’m going to let you in on a Contently editorial secret: We talk about Ryan Gosling all the time. Every week, we brainstorm ways to include Gosling in upcoming articles. He’s that good.
In terms of freelancing, couldn’t you see him as an abstract advice columnist? He’d spout offbeat haikus about succeeding at life like a young, good-looking Yogi Berra. Considering GQ, Esquire, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, et al. essentially relied on his face and body to sell every magazine in 2013, there’s precedence here. And the articles wouldn’t have to be more than 30 words: “If I eat a huge meal and I can get the girl to rub my belly, I think that’s about as romantic as I can think of.”
That’s not even a joke. He said that.
Editor’s note: Pshhh. Better idea: Ryan Gosling, Daddy Blogger. (He just impregnated Eva Mendes.) Babble will never be the same.
Justin Bieber
He’d probably write about fetishes for VICE and pen some truly awful Gawker articles about why he’s a misunderstood genius. But then he’d misuse your/you’re and get demolished by the Kinja masses. His ghostwriter would fix grammatical errors in his pieces, but Bieber would challenge the writer to a game of one-on-one basketball for editorial control, pay the writer $10,000 to lose, Instagram the game, and then reinsert the word “paparazzo” into his final draft one too many times. The worst part: Desperate editors would still publish it.
Gwyneth Paltrow
Her children are named Apple and Moses. She referred to the separation of her marriage as “conscious uncoupling.” She’s actually a mom-blogger pretending to be an actress, and her entire career has just been fodder for a memoir that will be published in installments by Elle.
Richard Sherman
When Ta-Nehisi Coates needs a breather, Sherman can tap in and write about complex racial issues unapologetically. He already contributes to Sports Illustrated. Considering his intensity, there’s a good chance he’d even freelance during the season, spending the minutes right up to kickoff drafting thinkpieces for Grantland and The New Yorker that bring together Erin Andrews, black aggression, the mob mentality of sports talk radio, and Jim Harbaugh’s khakis as a symbol for white privilege.
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