On Sideboob: The Deep Impact and Thundering Significance Of Arianna Huffington and the Sides of Stars' Boobs

Jun 06, 2012

If anyone even vaguely involved in online publishing (or as we call it here in the year 2012, "publishing") tries to tell you that they don't pay attention to what the Huffington Post is up to, they are filthy liars. For good or for ill, HuffPo has changed the way we report politics, news, pets, sexy ladies, sexy ladies in bikinis, and everything else. That's why it sent shockwaves through the industry last night when people began to notice an important new HuffPo vertical (this is web-dork-speak for "section") dedicated entirely to sideboobs . That URL is huffingtonpost dot com slash news slash sideboob, so you know it's bringing you all the important sideboob news; more in-depth features, the sideboob longreads, come later, we guess. The question that now confronts all other publishers is: do you get into a sideboob arms race with Arianna Huffington? We don't have their deep pockets to pay sideboob-specialist paparazzi who hover at celebrities' sides, waiting to see boobs, but we've aggregated our own sideboob slideshow for you, after the jump.

Angelina Jolie lies face down on a bed, no shirt on, back to you, her upper body propped up by pillows. She's sort of holding herself up by hanging on to the thin metal bands of the headboard. It seems awkward, but she doesn't look uncomfortable. You can see the side of her boob. She's smiling at you, looking less severe than her current persona (this is a cover of a magazine from 2000). Her butt is covered with a sheet and there appears to be a toy tank parked on it, but that might be Photoshopped in. The tank's significance is difficult to parse.

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Jennifer Aniston is sitting on a bed at an extremely awkward angle -- her left leg is bent under her, her right leg is dangling off the side of the bed, her right arm is sort of grabbing onto the blanket, which has a silvery duvet cover that looks hard to get traction on. She's wearing jean shorts that are obviously too big for her at the waist, and no shirt, so you can see the side of her boob. She's looking at you over her shoulder. This is the somewhat famous GQ cover from December 2005. The date startles you for a minute -- you thought this cover was older than that, but then you realize how long ago 2005 really was.

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"The fetishization of social is celebrating something going 'trending' or going 'viral' without asking what it is that’s going trending or viral. We all need to do a better job of asking those questions, otherwise we’re going to find ourselves in the same dangerous area that mainstream media have found themselves in." - Arianna Huffington , May 3, 2012

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Cameron Diaz is standing with her left side to you, left arm lifted so her hand is on her head. She is wearing a shirt that literally has no sides to it. Like, it has a front and a back, which connect over her shoulders, but no sides. She's also not wearing a bra, so you can see the side of her boob. You can actually see the featureless yellow background (computer-generated, or is she actually standing in front of a blank yellow wall?) between her back and the back panel of her weird sideless shirt. She is surrounded by teasers for Cosmo articles, because this is a Cosmo cover. "78 Ways To Turn Him On!" (#45: Show him the side of your boob.) "What Mean Want Most At 9 p.m." (To see the side of your boob.)

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Anne Hathaway is walking away from you, towards some glass doors labelled "LIGHTHOUSE." Where are you? What's happening? This is a photo from Getty Images, taken in the real world, not some magazine cover, but in some ways it's even more disorienting, because there's no context to grab onto. She's coming from some kind of formal event because she's wearing what appears to be an expensive and fancy dress, the top half of which is two separate loops of shimmery fabric that come up from the waist, over the shoulders, and down her front to the waist again. As you might imagine from that description, you can see the side of her boob. She's looking over her right shoulder and smiling at you, not unpleasantly.

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"The reason AOL is acquiring The Huffington Post is because we are absolutely passionate, big believers in the future of the Internet, big believers in the future of content." -- AOL CEO Tim Armstrong , February 2011

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Katy Perry is standing in front of a mysterious object, a jumble of shapes that you can't interpret because she's blocking most of it. She's looking to your left, not at you, and is intensely holding an expression with her mouth in a smile that doesn't convey any joy. She's sick of this event (whatever it is, "Los Angeles, January 2010" is all Getty Images will tell you about it) and all the photographs, or maybe her face just looks like that, now. She's wearing what's otherwise an unremarkable ecru shirt with golden floral prints, otherwise unremarkable except that it looks like it's torn along the side -- obviously its intentional, expertly distressed in some Bangladeshi factory, but the effect looks deliberately haphazard -- from the armpit to the top of her ribcage. Most of this hole is covered by her left arm, but you can still see the side of her boob.

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"We added original reporting as soon as I could. Things change and it takes a while for the narrative to be updated, because we did start as primarily a place for aggregation. This award makes it easier for the reality and the narrative to come together." --Arianna Huffington on the site winning a Pulitzer Prize

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There are other celebrities (Rachel McAdams) and people you suppose are celebrities (Audrina Partridge) and then there are just some American Apparel ads thrown in there, for no reason, one imagines American Apparel isn't even paying because they're ads for those weird wrestling singlet things that they don't sell anymore, you don't think. You can see the sides of their boobs. You can see the sides of all their boobs, you become an expert on sideboob, on assessing the different kinds, the different types of exposure, the different ways boobs are held in place, or not held in place, or held in place exactly such that, in still photos from Getty Images or on the covers of magazines, they appear to not be held in place. You can rate each sideboob in the slideshow on a scale from one star ("Too much -- this is tacky territory") to five ("Just a hint is beautiful"). You rate each one three ("You can see the side of her boob in this picture"). You give the three-star rating over and over again. "You can see the side of her boob in this picture." "You can see the side of her boob in this picture."

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