There's certainly no shortage of gossip about Britney, Beckham and Brangelina. But when it comes to black celebrities with less-than-B — that is, less-than-Beyonce — status, there seemed to be a void.

That's where Natasha Eubanks stepped in.

Eubanks created Young, Black & Fabulous (ybf.blogspot.com), a blog that gives the paparazzi treatment to celebrities who don't make the pages of US Weekly or the posts of PerezHilton.com. She started the blog after evacuating New Orleans ahead of Hurricane Katrina.

"That was kind of my release for the whole two months. I was just sitting at my parents' house for two months," Eubanks says.

The site has been steadily gaining in popularity along with similar sites — including Bossip, Concrete Loop and Crunktastical — that are presenting a mix of Hollywood's biggest stars with black readers' b-list favorites.

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On a recent day on YBF, there were photos of Beyonce, sure, but also of actress and model Joy Bryant at a Hollywood cocktail party and an update about R&B singer Ray-J, who appeared in the sitcom "Moesha" with real-life older sister Brandy.

Self-described pop culture junky Eboni Gatlin, a production assistant in New York, checks YBF for updates in the same way she checks her e-mail: frequently, and usually during work hours, which is when Eubanks said she gets the most hits.

Kelli Campbell, a leasing consultant in Indiana, does the same. "I check maybe one, two ... three, four times a day," Campbell said.

Internet expert Steve Jones, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said blogs like YBF reflect the Internet's diversity. "I think what we're seeing is a proliferation of blogging across cultural and ethnic groups, which mirrors the mix of Internet users," he said.

That's good news for Campbell, who also keeps up with US Weekly, InTouch, InStyle and mainstream gossip blogs.

"When I started, there weren't even any blogs focusing on Black Hollywood, or maybe I just didn't know about them. But now they're cropping up all over the place," she said.

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Still, Eubanks has struggled to get attention for YBF. For months, she sent e-mails to every blog she knew. When Dana — the radio DJ who presides over mainstream blog Dana's Dirt — went out of town one weekend, she posted a link for YBF on her page.

"I think I went from about a 1,000 hits to about 25,000," said Eubanks.

Since then, the numbers have grown. Eubanks is now preparing for law school and contributing a gossip column to the online version of monthly men's interest magazine, King. She also adds to the blogs on hip-hop Web site, SOHH.com.

"I want to be famous. I want to get a call from CNN, but that's 'other people,' that's not us," Eubanks said.

She's willing to wait for fame to catch up with blogs like YBF, their creators and the culture they document. After all, she said, it took a while for mainstream media to care about any blogs — let alone those documenting black Hollywood.

"Clearly that's not in their vision right now," she said. "I'm sure it will be, though."

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Find it online:

Young, Black & Fabulous: http://ybf.blogspot.com/

Bossip: http://bossip.com

Concrete Loop: http://concreteloop.com

Crunktastical: http://crunktastical.blogspot.com

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asap contributor Melanie Sims works in the AP's New York headquarters.

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