Star Struck
Why do we care so much about celebrities, when they have absolutely no idea who we are?
It may not be the most laudable claim to fame, but the 21st century is undeniably kneeling in the face of celebrity culture. Forget six degrees of separation. We are all on a first name basis and just a “Follow” button away from some of the most famous people in the world. Thanks to Twitter, I just found out that Charlie Sheen is currently eating crab cakes for dinner, and that Adele is having a girl’s night in with her best friend. In what many of us wistfully call the “good old days”, celebrities were heroes on a pedestal, complete with perfectly crafted images well beyond our reach. Not so anymore. The playing field has changed, and today the concept of celebrity exists for –and because of – the age of information. Celebrities are everywhere. In fact, celebrities are everyone – you don’t even need to have achieved something great in order for us to worship you anymore.
While it may have exploded to new heights, celebrity culture is nothing new. Since the days of Alexander the Great, people have looked up to the famous, who have secured their spot in history through the cunning commissioning of artists, poets, sculptors and the like. But there is no denying that today, celebrities don’t have the staying power they used to. For a very good reason: It is just not that hard to be famous these days. Centuries ago you needed to win wars and rule kingdoms, and decades ago celebrities sprung from the big screen. These days, however, it is less about achievement and more about presence.
Take Elizabeth Taylor for example. A leading child actor by the age of 12, she went on to star in a host of movies, many of which became classics. She also won a string of awards, including two Oscars and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute. Add to that the release of 12 fragrances and a heavy involvement in Aids activism, and it’s pretty fair to say that “Kitty” has earned her celebrity status.
Jump forward a few decades, and there is a string of celebrities (think of the Kardashians and Paris Hilton) whose 15 minutes quite simply should never have run on. They are famous simply for being famous, and thanks to the internet, they have the means to be so – without the traditional necessity for hard work or great accomplishments.
People have a need to communicate, to chat, to gossip and to connect. While we used to do this over the fence, we are now doing it through a screen with the masses. One could argue that Facebook, rather than de-personalising our methods of communication, is actually taking us back to the old ways, turning the world into a little village in which we know the finest details (welcome or not) of every one of our friends and their English bulldog. But whether you believe this theory or not, social networks and burgeoning online media have contributed to a greater need for content. We are online all day, every day, looking for information. Thus there is a market for more and more celebrities, as well as increasingly intimate details about their lives.
This craving for information transforms celebrities into über valuable commodities. Just look at the much anticipated Vogue September issue. In 2011, Vogue chose Kate Moss as their cover girl due to her ability to generate ad sales. In the 758-page magazine, a ludicrous 610 of those were ads. A large percentage of these were purely because Kate made the cover. The moral of the story? It pays to punt personalities, and so the show goes on.
So, magazines are making millions from promoting celebrities. But why do we, the “real folk”, give them so much of our precious time? Well, there is the obvious answer: That celebrities provide us with a fair amount of entertainment and enjoyment. We can be inspired by their success stories, and can certainly learn from their publicly splashed mistakes. But there is also the “village” theory. We are all emotionally stuck in a one-horse hamlet craving chitchat. In our increasingly isolated society, we can lament over Brangelina’s latest spat as if we were yakking about a close mutual buddy – without the risk of the grapevine biting us back.
We could go into a whole psychological evaluation of why we love celebrities, but the bottom line is that we do, and more so every day, apparently. New media means new faces, and as long as we are all connected, we are contributing to the creation of names in bright lights. It is a phenomenon that has and always will have an influence on society, both subliminally and palpably. Now, down to the serious stuff… How about that Kim Kardashian?
The Ten Celebrities with the Most Twitter Followers
1. Lady Gaga
2. Justin Bieber
3. Katy Perry
4. Kim Kardashian
5. Shakira
6. Britney Spears
7. Barack Obama
8. Rihanna
9. Taylor Swift
10. Selena Gomez
Story by Bob Truda
