Tête-à -tête with the boys of project rungay
The blog Project Rungay was created in 2006 by married couple Tom and Lorenzo as a way to vent their opinions on their favorite reality show, Project Runway. Born out of their need to stop themselves in what they call “committing homocide,” Project Rungay has now expanded their commentary to fashion and more television shows.
Their blog is catty but filled with insightful and honest repartees, which reflect the couple’s conversations throughout the day. Dialogue is spiced with flirty words such as “darlings,” “kittens” and “poodles” just as one might expect to hear from the funny gay guy in the next cubicle.
Four years after their first post, T Lo, as fans fondly call them, have garnered a large, worldwide audience ranging from urban gay men to rural straight women. Apart from their blogging, the couple has been holding celebrity and style interviews for Metrosource magazine with celebrities like Christina Hendricks, Robert Verdi and Tim Gunn.
Tom and Lorenzo agreed to an On the Radar exclusive interview.
On The Radar: You’ve been blogging since 2006 and garnered such a diverse audience. What was the turning point where you said, “Wow, we’re famous”?
T LO: We don’t want to sound falsely modest, but we haven’t really had that moment yet. We don’t really think of ourselves as “famous” because even if we were to admit a certain level of internet fame, well, that’s internet fame. It doesn’t do you any good to become impressed with yourself. We’re just a couple of bitchy, (hopefully) funny, opinionated guys who can put together a bunch of posts every day and get a decent number of people to come and read them and even better, leave a comment on them. While we’re thrilled that the blog is successful. The second we get cocky about it is the second our audience will start dwindling away.
Do you feel that you’re too judgmental? Has any one of your subjects called you out on being mean? If so, how did you handle it, and were there any death threats?
Death threats? Thankfully, no. A handful of reality show contestants really took what we do the wrong way, but for the most part, the people we write about either like us or they’re totally ambivalent about us.
As for “mean and judgmental,” we don’t see it that way. You can take an afternoon browsing through the top fashion, celebrity, and pop culture sites and find that quite a lot of them are far bitchier than we are.
We look at it like this: If you want to be on a reality TV show, then you’re going to have to put up with people on the Internet expressing opinions about you. It comes with the territory. We might as well have a little fun with it and if the subject really hates us for it, oh well.
We always restrict our commentary to their behavior and their work on the show itself. That is, we’re using the material they gave us when they opted to be on TV.
As for red carpet commentary, we always make this point but we don’t mind highlighting it again: in most of the red carpet situations we cover on our blog, the persons featured have the benefit not just of a personal stylist to help them dress, but the cooperation of designers and high-end boutiques who are all too willing to lend out everything: jewelry, bag, shoes, and dress. Considering most celebrities step out wearing outfits that cost more than the average woman’s wedding gown, and considering they usually paid someone to put the outfit together, they are more than fair game to come in for a little judging.
They’re big girls and boys. They can take it. We look at it like a competitive sport and we’re sitting at a table at the end of the red carpet holding up scorecards.
What is your favorite season of Project Runway?
Do you feel like they’ve lost their edge after moving to Lifetime?
Season 3 was the season that prompted us to start the blog, so it will always have a special place in our hearts. It also led to our friendship with S3 finalist Laura Bennett, which is definitely one of the best things to come out of all this. Besides, we loved the “characters” from that season more than any other; not just Laura, but Jeffrey, Uli, Mychael, Kayne, Malan, and Angela. They were a fun bunch; loaded with personality.
Yes, the show has lost its edge in recent years, but we’d argue that process had already started when it was still on Bravo. The long hiatus and the legal shenanigans didn’t help. They made a very bad choice to relocate the show to Los Angeles for the first season on Lifetime and that really turned a lot of people off.
Additionally, they’ve relied way too much on the celebrity judge in recent seasons and that just means boring challenges and boring critiques. It feels like season 8 represents the producers getting their bearings, finally. It’s the best season the show’s had in years because they lucked into or figured out how to cast the exact right combination of clowns, freaks, attention divas and artists.
My favorite portion of your blog would be the Mad Men recaps. Are you happy with the direction of the show? Do you wish Betty Draper-Francis would get more airtime? I honestly miss her.
We’re very happy with the direction of the show. It surprises us, but we do actually miss Betty a little bit. We think the character was over-exposed last season and we think she had been written into a corner. We’ve seen just enough of her this season to want to see more of her and maybe that was the plan all along. In any case, it was time for the show to put its focus back on the office and away from Don’s home life. We might wish for more Betty but we can’t complain about what we’re getting.
If you hosted a fabulous potluck dinner at home, who would be the perfect guests and what would they bring?
It would be a fashion potluck, of course. Karl Lagerfeld can bring his famous cabbage rolls and Miuccia Prada can bring her delectable pigs in a blanket. We just love the idea of all these world-class designers showing up with their favorite covered dish. Why, here’s Marc Jacobs with his potato puffs, and in the back there is Diane Von Furstenberg with a baked Alaska. Jean-Paul Gaultier’s proudly presenting his sausage and peppers to the Mulleavey sisters from Rodarte, who have just put their famous pineapple and bacon hors d’oeuvres on the table. Fabulous! Especially when Karl puts on the dishwashing gloves and apron and pitches in to clean up.
What’s the future for Project Rungay/Tom and Lorenzo? World domination?
Just puttering along, doing what we’re doing. We’re too lazy for world domination. We’re working on a book, which has proven to be especially challenging because blogs don’t necessarily make good books and we want to keep the voice and the feel of T Lo but figure it out for a different medium. People always ask us about getting a TV show and honestly, the idea seems absurd to us. We’ve been approached a couple of times about TV, but so far, we’ve resisted the urge. It’s not something we’re inclined to do, so if we were to do it, it would have to be because we love the concept. No, we’re quite happy where we are, building an audience and a community day by day. There’s something thrilling about putting something out there, whether it’s a joke or an opinion, and having a rather intimidatingly large group of people engage with it almost immediately. Thankfully, after four years, we still find blogging exciting and fun. Which is good, because we plan on doing it for a good while to come.
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For more of their commentary on all things fabulous, visit Tom and Lorenzo’s Blog at http://projectrungay.blogspot.com.
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Grace blogs at http://www.divasoria.ph.
