The XX Factor: What women really think.

Celebrity Industrial Complex Holds On

Last night, the heretofore squeaky clean heartthrob Chris Brown turned himself in to the L.A. police for allegedly making criminal threats against his girlfriend, the hugely successful pop singer Rihanna. He's now out on bail and is also under investigation for felony domestic violence. In lieu of any verifiable, definitely accurate information about what went down between the two, I don't feel particularly comfortable opining on the dispute, but I will say this: The gossip industry (blogs, tabloids, TV news magazines) is positively gleeful, albeit in the most concerned way possible, to be covering such a high-profile incident (TMZ has seven posts up about it since 8 p.m. ET yesterday).

In the absence of the radically unhinged celebrity behavior that was commonplace during the Brit-Paris-Lindsay era (and, wow, look around, we're finally out on the other side of that mind-deadening national obsession. Maybe there's one good thing about mortgage-backed securities after all), the gossip biz hasn't had a chance to stretch its rumor-mongering, banal-detail-finding wings in some time. Now it's got a chance to do what it does best (forget this "covering" politics thing) and, judging from this morning's saturation coverage, it's not going to let up anytime soon. Not so long ago, there would have been another sordid story in the pipeline, ready to snatch the news cycle away from Brown and Rihanna—now there's just the stimulus package. I'm not sure the gossip media is equipped to cover domestic assault admirably/responsibly/interestingly, but we're definitely going to get to watch them try.