Never heard of pop gods Justin Case, Vanity the Great and Buffi?

My name is Andrew and I am a Urapopstar addict. It only happened recently, and I feel reasonably confident that I’ll get over it, but friends have expressed concern. Not that I need friends now I have Urapopstar.

To encounter Urapopstar is to be flung, dizzy but fearless, into a parallel universe where truth and fiction collide in an explosion of sizzling Technicolor. Put another way, it’s a website (www.urapopstar.cjb.net) where you can invent your own pop stars and compete to get them into the Urapopstar top 40. Cool!

It’s February in the Urapopstar chatroom. The Svengali behind Buffi - who bears a startling resemblance to Sheryl Crow - e-mails to announce that Buffi has just joined the label Ex.Nation. "Buffi was originally with Ghettoland, but after finishing her two-album deal last year, she did not sign a new contract. Could this be down to mediocre sales of her album Rock Star? No! Buffi decided not to re-sign as the label looked close to destruction due to lack of interest from owner Ryan Simmonds." This news does not impress Buffi’s Urapopstar rivals. "It was shit to start with," replies Nikki Neon. "You'll be drinking blood when I smack your face!" responds Buffi, reasonably.

It’s not all this cutthroat. Elsewhere, Vanity the Great is announcing his/her new single, Don’t You Just Hate It When Your Knickers Fall Down In a Pet Shop And You Fall Into a Fish Tank, and new album, Songs From Grease 2. Edna Albaquorque is hugely excited. "I missed yer suuuuuh much Vaniteh! Our granny pack wasn’t the sehm wifout yer."

If you think this is eccentric, try visiting one of Urapopstar’s many spin-off websites, such as Justin Case’s site www.justincaseonline.cjb.net, where you’ll find lyrics, gossip and Justin’s discography. "I can now officially announce ... Me & Britney Aguilera ARE dating! Woo!" writes Justin, who - unusually for pop stars - does his own gossip page. Then there is www.tricity-official.cjb.net, a mindbendingly elaborate creation which pretends that Tricity have been reviewed in Smash Hits and appeared on Top of the Pops, and has photos and cuttings to prove it. Tricity, I fear, actually believe they are real pop stars.

Urapopstar is not the only online club for imaginary pop stars, but I have yet to find one more elaborate (do write in if I’m wrong). I was so impressed that I was going to register my own act, Kitchens of Distinction (actually a real band that I loved years ago, who never had a hit, but how postmodern would it be to resurrect them as fictional pop idols?) until I reached the screen that asks you to enter credit card details and tick a box that says: "Yes! I support America, and want to win a US Flag." So I remain a Urapopstar voyeur, spying in chatrooms and watching the charts for this week’s winners and losers. It is a bit like reading Heat, in fact, but with fewer articles about Jade Goody, which is obviously a good thing. Instead, lovely Orlando Bloom is a pop star called Paul Control. I think I prefer it here, and may stay.

The most interesting thing about Urapopstar is how much it resembles the real charts. There are psychotically ambitious pop divas, boy bands, sensitive singer songwriters, grubby looking nu metal bands and terrible novelty records (well, I can only assume they’re terrible, since they don’t exist, but I’d say the odds are against Let’s All Do The Wild Mambo by The Chink O’ Chonks winning a Urapopstar songwriting award). Confusingly, Busted are here, but they’re called Emblaze. So is Jordan, only she’s called Edna. The only thing lacking is interesting leftfield acts gatecrashing the whole shallow sham. But if you care about that you probably have taste and better things to do.

I was going to try and draw an incisive conclusion about how Urapopstar reflects the zeitgeist, as columnists do. I thought I might say something about how, in a post-Pop Idol age in which we are all hyper-aware of the complex workings of the media, we can only worship celebrity if we can also control it. And that in manipulating the trivial exploits of the shameless we achieve a temporary escape from the terrifying lack of control in a post-political world where multinationals are more powerful than governments.

But that would be pretentious. And besides, I need to finish this so I can sign the Save Edna Albaquorque petition.