Right after getting in from a hurly-burly din-din in New York for the Time 100 – the mag’s annual register of the global who’s who – I go straight to the laptop. There I do what anybody who’s anybody, and even some who are just plain nobodies, do after a celebrity spree: Log onto www.wireimage.com to find out who really was there.

WireImage, a press agency that’s been around for awhile but in recent years has really turned it up, is an online Piazza San Marco for those of us who like to row along the canals of celebrity. One-stop stalking, you might say.

For the Time party I was just at, I pore over the site like Jill Hennessy examining corpses in Crossing Jordan. I look for Martha Stewart who, yes, has apparently gone from doing time to doing Time. Yes, that was a Louis Vuitton bag she was carrying. I knew it! And, yup, that gent I was talking to over shrimp who looked awfully familiar but whose name I never caught? I go down WireImage boulevard, find the face and then the name. I google the name, and, wow, will you getta load of that? He’s huge on the stem cell research scene!

But for those of you who are thinking that WireImage is just some sort of CliffsNotes for a two-bit journo like moi, think again. It’s more. Sending out an army of photographers to everything that happens in the shindig capitals on any given day – fragrance launch in London, a basketball star’s birthday in L.A., a red carpet promenade in gay Paris – the wire service also serves many other nifty functions.

It’s an instant yearbook for those who were there but too fizzed on bubbly to remember. It’s a way, also, for celebs or those trying their damnedest to become celebs to keep score. Consider Canadian twinkly Neve Campbell: She may not be as big as she once was, but she seemingly understands the perils of outta sight, outta mind, and manages to keep up her appearances on the website. Or think Paris Hilton… Back in the spring, when she was at Toronto’s MuchMusic, I noted with my own eyes that, though she was stormed by a phalanx of paparazzi on the red carpet, she immediately appeared to recognize the WireImage photog on hand. And when she did, Paris darling turned her body just so, fiercely focused her gaze and seemed to pose only for him!

Celebs, arguably, follow their postings on WireImage the way modern political parties follow the polls. But, as is so often the case with the Internet, there can be a blackly comedic side too. Because it’s so thorough, it actually makes it easier to fake being at parties. “Oh, the Marc Jacobs party was great,” said someone I caught fibbing after she’d studied up on New York Fashion Week on WireImage. (I knew she hadn’t been in town.) “Hilary Swank was there. And Giselle looked so beautiful. And…”

Then there’s the wild story I’ve heard about the well-known Hollywood insider who was caught by his wife for not being where he said he was. After telling her he’d been at a certain party and spiking his story with silly details, she went straight to WireImage and saw that his story about who was there didn’t actually jibe. Yikes!

The real point about that last story? Not that it’s necessarily true but that it could be. After all, this is the age of the online party mixer, and everyone is cordially invited to peep – because when all is scene and done, this is where photo op meets party hop. 

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Shinan Govani is the Scene columnist for the National Post and frequently appears on television commenting on celebrities and the social whirl. Write him at sgovani@enroutemag.net.