Why is Fabulis, the newly-minted homo-social planning site, rubbing elbows with The Office, Grey Gardens, a tiny dachshund, and Bill Clinton’s White House? And more importantly, how you can you jostle your own elbows into that scene?
We’ve been talking about Fabulis for months — from its boy-happy music video to its bank woes turned viral goldmine to its delicious Manhunt smack-down. When it launched a casual popularity contest game last month, some were a little aghast, since it seemed to play to the worst cliquey aspects of gay culture. And the whole time that we were talking about the site, everyone kept coming back to the same question: “What, actually, is it?”
Well, now we know: It’s an event planner that keeps an eye on Facebook and tells you what events local gays are attending. Okay, that’s kind of neat, sure. But what’s this? Clinton LGBT adviser and Obama punch-puller Richard Socarides is involved somehow?
Yup, it’s true. Fabulis recently announced its advisory panel, comprised mainly of entertainment industry insiders. Along with the Hollywood big-shots are two unexpectedly political names: Socarides is one, and former GLAAD president Neil Giuliano is the other. But that’s not all: One or two empty seats remain, and Fabulis is holding a contest to fill them.
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Socarides, it turns out, is old friends with Fabulis founder Jason Goldberg (that’s him on the right, smooching his partner). The two met in the White House back in the 90s, around the same time that Boy George was “angling for a career revival by addressing his new album’s love songs to men.”
Giuliano, as you may recall, left GLAAD a year ago “to pursue other interests.” Guess we know what those are now! Mixing it up with internet gays. (He’s currently ranked as the #113 homosexual in the world on Fabulis, BTW.)
So who else is on this advisory panel? Some names that might make you say, “Ohhhhh? Is that … what, who is that? Oh, right, that guy.”
Halsted Sullivan is a behind-the-camera sort of guy, so you can be forgiven for not recognizing his name unless you scrutinize the credits of The Office. (Remember the Cafe Disco episode? Yeah, he wrote that.)
You might recognize Michael Sucsy (pictured): He wrote, produced, and directed the new Grey Gardens. And as if that wasn’t gay enough, he’s working on a Broadway-bound musical called Cuba Libre, which we are guessing has something to do with Fidel Castro holed up in a cabana with his crazy brother Raúl. Julian Bennett’s actually pretty big in the UK, which is where homosexuality comes from. He’s hosted the British version of Queer Eye, co-hosts a TV show alongside a dachshund, and showed some tough love for Kylie Minogue.
And then there’s Allen Morgan. Who? Oh, just an incredibly high-powered venture partner at the Mayfield Fund, one of those companies that finds money, does God-knows-what with it, and somehow turns it into even more money. And get this, Judy: he’s straight. It’s true! Don’t all clutch your pearls at once. Morgan’s interest in the site is probably grounded in his previous dealings with Fabulis founder Jason Goldberg. They previously worked together on non-gay sites Socialmedian and Jobster.
So, what exactly does this cavalcade of stars do? It’s not completely clear, although this band of super-friends is not yet fully assembled — Fabulis is looking a few youthful user or two to round out the cast.
Here’s how it’s going to work. They’re asking users to change one of their profile tags to “young fabulis adviser” and then do a little online social whoring. Get voted up to the top of the list, and at the end of the week, Fabulis will interview the top five and offer a position on the panel to one or two of their faves. (Little known fact: This is also how Obama will be picking Justice John Paul Stevens’ replacement.)
And by the way, applicants must be aged 18-25, because old people are gross. You know a party’s finished when a 26-year-old walks through the door.
Sadly, Bobby Apple — our fake profile that we created just to see how many votes a random shirtless torso could acquire — is currently only ranked 24th on the list. What a travesty.
Current front-runners include, not surprisingly, a bunch of young cuties. We’re particularly intrigued by Dan Leveille, who’s developing some sort of mystery gay site of his own: Equalitopia. Like Fabulis, it’s unclear exactly what the site will do, which means that it will probably be a smash hit, especially if it includes a shirtless torso.
Now, if we were the sneaky type — and why would you think that we are? — we might try some trick like waiting until the voting is about to end and then flooding one specific profile with votes. But that would be underhanded and wrong and would steal the thunder from someone else who is more deserving of attention due to his ability to attract mouseclicks! So if you’re thinking about wasting even a single moment on gaming an internet popularity contest, well, SHAME ON YOU, SIR.
RDW
Who cares? So far all I can tell is fabulis is all about people walking around telling each other how great they are. What is the big deal. Is this brand building just for the sake of it?
Baxter
Fabulis is awesome! Now if you meet a cute guy you can easily discover if he’s a psycho narcissist just by seeing if he’s on the site. Thanks guys!
I’ve got to wonder who decided it was a good idea to throw their money away by investing in this. How long will it be before this new dot-com bubble bursts? Didn’t we learn anything from the late 90s?
Dan Leveille
Thanks for mentioning me and Equalitopia.com! 🙂
Equalitopia will NOT have any shirtless torsos. Haha. But like it says on the website, it’s an application that will organize and analyze the LGBT movement around the world. That’s all I’m saying for now, but more information will be coming soon. 🙂
petrov
I must be old. Don’t have a clue what this article is talking about.
Kyle24
zzzzz. who needs a website for gays with low self esteem to make themselves feel better? these are the same guys prancing and preening at the gym and the ones at the clubs and bars who think they are owed something because they had the luck of the roll of the DNA dice. These gays sound like they love acting like they are still in high school and all the immature drama that went with it. Grow up and simply go up to a guy and introduce yourself. Stop hiding behind social networking sites.
Queerty is obsessed with Jarret Barrios. ZZZ. (John from England)
Fabulis is genius.
Why? Because it;s not warped, bitchy and insane like Queerty.
Have a look before you bash…seriously..
Thier top rated groups are geeks and foodies.
Come on, better then Queerty showering pictures of nake muscled white guys and the obligatory brown boy every so ofetn.
Frozen North
“better then Queerty showering pictures of nake muscled white guys and the obligatory brown boy every so ofetn.”
Yes, because really what we were missing was posts on 18-25 year olds. Queerty is so biased against that age group.
I’ve been lamenting all the youtube, picture, and news posts have all been about the over-the-hill 27-35 year olds, not to mention the icky 36+ over the hill trolls.
Thanks Fabulis and John from England! *ahem*
A
This is dumb. Why does it have to do with age? There are some guys who are 23 looks like 40. BLECH. Sorry, I think age limit is retarded to begin with.
Jar of Vaseline
Fabulis is stupid.
Queerty is obsessed with Jarret Barrios. ZZZ. (John from England)
@Frozen North:
Dude fair enough. I don’t care enough to argue with you. I’m not American and thank god however crap Britain is, we have more opportunities then you do.
I just stated my opinion being into tech, social media stuff and endeavours that just don’t fit one type of gay and bitchy man.
You’re entitled to your opinion and me mine.
I’m sure Queerty can look into my IP adress and figure out I’m the same person who has been posting under this name for a few years but hey ho!
Queerty is obsessed with Jarret Barrios. ZZZ. (John from England)
@A:
It’s called ‘Young Advisor’..
As an old guy-me too!-would you want to spend your whole time on social media?
Are you that thick?
They just announced a board of guys over 35 and want to bring in someone young who isn’t jaded or full of sh*t like you get in this site.
What is so complex that you don’t GET IT?
JonathanHasHasIt
@Dan Leveille: dude, you are NOT fabulis material.
JonathanHasHasIt
@Queerty is obsessed with Jarret Barrios. ZZZ. (John from England): Fabulis is shit.
Alexander A.
Fabulis is good for one thing and one thing only: the events. I’m new to a large city (Chicago) so I don’t know what’s going on most nights, but I found out about at least 3 gay events I would actually WANT to go to this week. The R U FABULIS thing was kinda sketchy, even for a beta, but the events are REALLY what it’s good for.
TiredOldQueen@Queerty
I wish them well. But I have no interest whatsoever.
David
Sounds like the place to go if you suffer from an arrested state of maturity.
Hal T
So the older gays like Goldman and Shellhammer who run Fabulis only want younger gays to join and sign up. SOunds like a chicken hawk thing to do. Fabulis pays themselves a very high salary while they outsource their computer skills to Indian.
TheAwfulTruth
@Hal T: Bravo Hal T. What an embarrassment, for all those involved in this very un-fabulis thing, old gays with money and power only wanting young thangs with bulging muscles and full heads of hair. No wonder our movement is in such disarray. With friends like these…
Jason
I am old. Thank God.
Queerty is obsessed with Jarret Barrios. ZZZ. (John from England)
@JonathanHasHasIt:
Good for you. Knock yourself out.
But somehow, I don’t & hope for their sake!, that the Queerty commenters are not their demographic because for a social network to function cohesively, it wouldn’t work with people with your attitude or any of the attitudes here.
Life is bad enough as it is with war, racism, abuse, homophobia, corruption etc etc that you don’t need a social network that is actually the only gay social network for gays that isn’t about sex or hating Barack Obama to be full of negativety.
@Alexander A.:
Yeah, well that’s the thing about a beta site. It’s beta. This means it’s in a transitional stage and is feeding feedback about the site to improve it. This can sometime’s last a year but tend to last a few months.
A virtual site will have a Private Beta launch-where you invite investors, influencers etc to comment on the site. They will go back to drawing board and improve it, then they will have a Public beta launch.
This is the stage Fabulis is at. It’s not at the Alpha stage.
The smart thing about opening up a beta launch to the public is that you create customer loyalty and interaction from the start and the users feel like they’ve had more of an influence into how the site will eventually function.
So to premarturely have an opinion about a public beta launch is mute and illogical because it’s not finished yet.
JonathanHasHasIt
@Queerty is obsessed with Jarret Barrios. ZZZ. (John from England): Oh please, spare me your psychobabble bullshit and fake eloquence trying to pass for analysis. You’re gross.
Hal T
I’m gay myself. But also this ranking list by fabulis,. They list themselves as the most popular gays in the world. What kind of list is THAT? I can run my own website and people would vote for me as the “most popular” gay male in the world.
If Queerty would come out with a ranking of the most popular gays and it the most popular was someone from queerty themselves, it doesn’t mean anything.
What fabulis is. A bunch of middle aged balding men getting paid to go around partying on the investors nickel. Had Fabulis been started by young men, I would be a lot more receptive toward it.
DR (the real one, not the guy who made post #12)
I’m not a big fan of this ranking system, however it’s calculated. Seems kind of… lame… shady… unnecessary… to me, to be honest. I did, however, have the site bookmarked until I could figure out what it was, and I do think there is something to be said, as Alexander A noted, about the events calendar for people new to a certain city.
Tom in Lazybrook
@Hal T:
Wow. So lets recap the players.
Manhunt – Republican owned. Is it just me, or are there are more methhunters than manhunters on that site? They allow open invitations to have unsafe sex and PNP (drug use), but will TOS you if you talk politics on their site. I don’t get the appeal for a non-drug user/non-barebacker who doesn’t vote for McCain/Palin.
Gay.com – Hard to use
Gayromeo/gaydar – Great if you’re in Europe. Not so much if you’re in the USA.
Craigslist – Creeeeepy
Adam4adam. Free! And easy to use. And a decent mix of people on there.
Fabulus. Given their apparently marketing strategy, I’ll just take my 40 year old, well employed business elsewhere. It appears as though they are looking to have a contest to feed their egos and are catering to those who seek to do the same. Which is probably just fine with them. At least they are honest about their vapidity.
D-list. Site crashes constantly.
If this is online Gay life, I think that Gay bars might be coming back.