The Age of Celebrity Worship

Celebrities are everywhere we look. They line the lines at the grocery store, they're the first thing we see when we get on the internet, and they're on almost every channel we flip through on the TV.

It seems it's only natural that we would develop some sort of fascination with their lives when they infiltrate every part of ours. Celebrity worship isn't a new thing; it's actually been around for a very long time.

As Christine Lagorio suggests in her article "A New Age of Celebrity Worship", it's only natural for us to want to know about these people we see all the time.

For decades tabloids have been keeping track of the lives of celebrities. Modern technologies today make it so much easier for us to follow the daily lives of our favorite celebrities. At any moment we can check any given celebrity's thoughts on twitter or see where they went yesterday in the latest issue of People or US Weekly. There are countless gossip websites where we can get the latest updates on any celebrity couple's make-up or break-up.

All the technologies available to us make it easier to keep up with all the celebrities out there, but they also fuel our obsessions with them.  Our access to technology allows us to find out any information we want whenever we want, essentially feeding our addiction to celebrities.

This addiction our society has to the lives of celebrities has caused us to create celebrities where there originally were none. Now, any contestant on any given reality TV show instantly becomes a celebrity, automatically demanding our adoration and attention. Even on a local scale we've come to obsess over the lives of the rich in our neck of the woods for the sole reason that they have more money than us.

I think our obsessions not only stems from our need to know information about other people but also from our desire to connect with people who live lives we don't. By tracking the lives of celebrities we are able to live out our fantasies through them.

Some may call this unhealthy, and it can be if you allow it to take over your life. But I say the lives of celebrities are simply fascinating, and there's nothing wrong with being fascinated!

Are they really celebrities?

Today I want to explore the sub-class celebrities called socialites. Similar to reality TV stars, socialites are celebrities who really haven't contributed to the world of entertainment or even worked their way up the world-of-entertainment ladder; they just have a lot of money. If Kathy Griffin is a D-List celebrity, then socialites are probably a little farther down the list, say J or K-List celebrities...well most of them anyway.

Personally I don't consider most socialites to be celebrities. I suppose they're celebrities in their own right, but we'll get to that later.

I have to clarify when I say most socialites aren't celebrities. Many socialites have become celebrities, take for example Paris Hilton. When we first started hearing about Ms. Hilton in the entertainment world she hadn't actually done anything to warrant the attention, except for the fact that she has a lot of money.

It seems the upper-classes of Southern California and New York can become famous simply for running with the right crowd. This is how Nicole Richie, Kim Kardashian, and Kimberly Stewart all got their starts. At some point in time they were friends with the right celebrities, and their names then became associated with celebrity status. The simple act of having their names in the press has "launched" their careers, or at least gotten them off the ground. Now, these ladies could be considered celebrities, with multiple different reality TV shows, clothing lines, perfumes, and high-profile relationships credited to their names.

However, there is a different class of socialite that hasn't quite made it to the really big time, but they can be considered local celebrities. I would say this is most common in New York, but I'm sure every big city has their own class of local celebrity.

As you all know, I'm a reality TV junkie, and the Real Housewives series have not eluded the list of shows I watch. I want to specifically focus on the Real Housewives of New York.

The women featured on this series could now be considered celebrities (if you want to stretch it that far), but they all originally began as socialites of New York City. New York really is on a whole different playing field than most large cities. The tabloids of the Big Apple follow the lives of these socialite women like they just won an Oscar for Best Picture.

New York has a series of gossip magazines and newspapers dedicated just to the lives of socialites, the red carpet events they attend, and the inner workings of their daily lives.

This is something I just cannot wrap my brain around. I don't understand following and obsessing over a whole class of people simply because they have millions of dollars.

I understand that may sound contradictory to my fascination with celebrities, but the majority of celebrities that keep us tuned in have actually warranted that mesmerization. In a way, they work for the adoration they recieve. Movie stars whose movies flop and don't recieve a lot of attention aren't nearly as popular as the celebrities that are constantly making Oscar-worthy movies. Money just lets you buy more expensive things; I don't necessarily think it is worthy of my time and adoration.

While I don't understand their idol status, I can see why people pay attention to the lives of socialites. Socialites are a seemingly attainable celebrity. In most cases, if you are following the life of a socialite it's because they live where you live. They have to walk the same streets you do, so there is a level of relatability that exists there. Being so close to that world allows socialite stalkers to dream that one day that could be them. They could be the ones whose lives people follow.

I don't understand it, but it seems there is something fascinating to being and following a socialite.

She made HOW much?!?!??



Toni Morrison



Snooki

Reality stars are America’s new celebrities.

Being a reality TV star has become a job. A job I’m sure none of them are complaining about; they asked for it, after all!

Wet Paint, an entertainment news site, has reported that for season 3 of Jersey shore cast members were paid about $30,000 per episode! That salary doesn’t even include the money they make on the side. DJ Pauley D makes up to $80,000 for DJing one week. One week!! That’s more than a lot of people make in a year! To show up and have their pictures taken at a red carpet event, some of the more prominent cast members, like Mike “the Situation” Sorrentino, can make up to $20,000 per appearance. Talk about ridiculous!

If these reality TV stars had actually contributed something worthwhile to society I could understand the amount of money they are raking in. However, as much entertainment as they bring to our lives, that probably isn’t enough to warrant tens of thousands of dollars.

Recently, an uproar was made when Snooki, a Jersey Shore cast member, made more than Nobel prize-winning Toni Morrison to speak at Rutgers University.

As big a fan as I am of reality TV, there just might be something wrong with the priorities in this situation. I enjoy Snooki, I think she’s hilarious, but I can guarantee she probably doesn’t have something more valuable to input than a Nobel prize-winner.

I think this is where our society is right now though. We’re so focused on finding the next celebrity that at times I think we lose focus on what really matters. I’m guilty of this too. We get so wrapped up with what we see every day it’s easy to lose sight of what’s important.

So here’s my call to action: enjoy celebrities, reality stars, every day people for the entertainment they bring you. But don’t forget what really matters in society and in life because what really matters is every bit as fascinating!

The Reality of Reality TV

I am a reality TV junkie. I love it! Why, you ask? I’m not exactly sure. Part of me likes seeing people make fools of themselves on national television and another part of me roots for someone like me to make it to the big time.

Ever since the first days of Survivor, America has been obsessed, and I mean OBSESSED, with reality TV.  The first Survivor finale brought in a little over 51 million viewers. That’s more than twice the population of Texas!

Psychology Today conducted surveys to figure out America’s fascination with reality TV.  Most Americans said they keep up with reality TV so they can have something to talk about with their peers. I see this being very true. The show Jersey Shore has created a following that constantly has people asking the next day, “Did you see what Snookie did last night?” We all want to fit in, and, since reality TV has become such a part of our culture, we all have to watch reality TV to fit in.

Psychology Today also speculates that Americans watch reality TV because they identify with the want to rise to automatic fame. Whether you actually are a talented singer or your vocals are best suited for the shower, I think we’ve all had a fantasy of being on stage with millions of fans adoring us. Wait, you haven’t? Oh, me neither. I’m just saying most people have. This is why American Idol still brings in about 20+ million viewers each season.

I’m sure as avid followers of reality TV you are well aware that reality TV isn’t always reality. I mean, is it every day that one guy is surrounded by 25 women vying for his attention, like on The Bachelor? And I think we all know that it isn’t normal for 15 people to be cooped up in a house full of cameras doing ridiculous stunts, like on Big Brother. Don’t think I’m dissing these shows, I can’t get enough of them, but some of the things they do just plain aren’t normal.

Ray Richmond, a television critic for Hollywood Reporter, told MSNBC that reality producers take a “kernel of fact and using it to construct a multi-pronged piece of fiction in the guise of truth and actuality.”

Many people may feel betrayed, but I say ratings are ratings-do what you have to do. Most of these shows would probably be a lot more boring if there wasn’t some kind of drama created, and, I’ll admit, that drama is what makes those shows so darn addicting!

When it comes down to it, America is so fascinated with reality TV because the contestants’ “reality” is so much more interesting than our own! But it looks like we’re all ok with that!

Can I be famous too?

So as I was saying in my last post, our society has begun to create celebrities out of everyday people. It’s a trend that began back with the very beginning of reality TV.

It turns out that if you go about it the right way blogging can bring in the dough the same way ordinary people make bookoo amounts of money just by being on a TV show. Blogging has actually become a lucrative business according to Forbes.com, who estimates that 1.7 million of the 20 million bloggers “are blogging for cash.”

Let's look at the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, for example. Ree was a stay-at-home Ranch wife and mother of 4 who simply decided one day to start a blog while her husband was gone with their kids. She was soon shot to stardom when she expanded her blog to include her ventures around the ranch, in the kitchen, and into the world of photography.

The Pioneer Woman has now appeared on countless TV shows, like the Today Show and The View. She's written a cookbook, a children's book about her dog, Charlie, and recently released her book Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, which chronicles how she met her husband and their first year of marriage. These books have taken her around the country signing books.

Pioneer Woman's boost to stardom is the perfect example of a ordinary blogger making money just by putting her thoughts, albeit HIL-a-ri-ous thoughts, out there for the world to read. She might be a special case though.

Most bloggers probably shouldn't expect to be on Live with Regis and Kelly next week. I'm sure all of you out there are dying to hear what I have to say and genuinely think I am the next Pioneer Woman, blogging star. But the truth is if blogs are going to make money it's probably going to be through advertisements and sponsors.

It seems the funnier you are or the more informative your topics are, the more page views you will get. And with the page views come sponsors. Companies are willing to pay you to keep blogging if you'll put their icon on the side of your page.

Some of my personal favorite blogs are Today's Letters and Rockstar Diaries. These are two bloggers who haven't quite made it to Pioneer Woman status yet, but they are definitely profiting from telling their tales of the day. According to Forbes, "eMarketer estimates advertising on blogs will reach an all-time high of $746 million by 2012." That's a lot of money!

Even though you won't see either of them on the Today Show tomorrow, these ladies are celebrities in their own right with thousands of followers.And I'll tell you right now, I'm just as interested in hearing what happened on their way to work as I am about the ins and outs of last week's American Idol eliminations.

You could say their ordinary lives are pretty fascinating!

Wanna hear about my day?

What draws you to read someone’s autobiography? Personally, if I’m going to take time to read someone’s life story, they usually have to be someone of relative importance. I’m going to go ahead and assume this is how it is for most people. There’s really no draw for us as readers to read things about people we don’t know or care about.

Essentially personal blogs are shorter, day-to-day updates of someone’s life story, their autobiography.

It seems the world has become, well, fascinated with the personal blogs of everyday people, some they know and some they don’t. So what makes personal blogs about people we don’t know so much more fascinating than autobiographies about people we don’t know?

First off, I’m sure the length of the piece plays a large factor in our willingness to spend time reading about somebody else’s life. I’m much more inclined to read a few paragraphs about someone’s day than I am to read 200+ pages in a book.

Second, and probably most importantly, it is easier for us to connect to ordinary people, like ourselves, than to somebody in the limelight.

As I’ve talked about before, we obsess over celebrities lives because in our own way we’re trying live out our long-lost yearnings to be the next George Clooney or Sandra Bullock. On the other end of the spectrum, we’re able to connect with the blog entries of everyday people because their everyday lives actually resemble ours.

And sometimes it makes life just a little bit easier knowing there are people out there like you.

This need to relate to people out there has driven our society to celebrisize people who aren’t…celebrities. But that’s another post for another time!

Celebrity News Blogs

So we've seen that there a quite a few different ways to get your celebrity stalk on. The last installment in our list of ways to track celebrities comes with celebrity news blogs. To be honest celebrity blogs aren't much different from visiting magazine pages, like People, online.

I would venture to say there are two types of celebrity news blogs: straight news and opinion blogs.

The blogs, like Pop Eater, that give straight celebrity news are those closest to magazines like People and US Magazine. They are constantly giving updates on breaking news in the celebrity world. There is very little opinion spun through the articles. Their goal is to get the news out there for the world to read.

Opinion blogs, like Perez Hilton or CelebSpin, I would say are closer to magazines like Star or Ok. The bare bones of the story are there, but more noticeably are the opinions of the writer. Sometimes the opinion only comes through in the bias of the article. But other times it's a little more noticeable.

Take these pictures for example. These are from Perez Hilton's website, where everything is dripping with his take on the issue. Most often times his opinion is first seen in the pictures he posts. Like decorating the picture with hearts, displaying his obvious love for the royal couple. Or he'll write words on the pictures, like above, letting you know he definitely doesn't agree with what this guy has said. Since these blogs are filled with opinion you can't take everything said to be the absolute truth; you have to be careful what you believe.

Celebrity blogs definitely have their place though. Sometimes it's fun to see what other people think about certain "breaking news". And if nothing else their comments, or picture captions, are just plain funny...and perhaps fascinating!

Bloggity Blog

Blogs. Have you heard of them? These days how could you not? They are all the rage, you see.

There are so many different kind of blogs floating around on the internet these days. Blogs, or web logs, started as a way to log the events of your life or provide commentary to things going in the world. They're basically online journals that allow you to express your opinion.

According to Ink Rebels there are 5 types of blogs.

The first type of blog is a collaborative blog, like the Huffington Post. These blogs are a culmination of articles written by multiple authors, and they can be about all kinds of different subjects.

The second type, and one of my most favorite, is the how-to/do-it-yourself blog. Again these blogs can have a world of topics, but they all provide instructions on how to complete a task or make something.

The third is a travel/culture blog. These blogs are basically travel journals where someone gives travel tips or reviews a recent trip they've taken. These can be really helpful when you're planning your next trip or vacation.

The fourth type of blog is the fashion/lifestyle blog. These blogs are often accompanied by a slew of photographs documenting the different fashion trends around the world. Their main objective is to share the different fashion trends occuring. They also give you advice on how to live the ultimate lifestyle by telling you how to feel good and take care of yourself. I cannot tell you how many of these blogs there are out there on the internet. One of the most popular lifestyle blogs I've found is iVillage, which gives all kinds of tips and ways to improve your life and take care of yourself.

Lastly, there is the personal blog. This is the original type of blog. Like this very blog you're reading right now, personal blogs are the daily loggings of the lives of ordinary people, like you and me. It's very interesting how these blogs have evolved.

I'm going to add one last type of blog to this list: the news/celebrity blog. This type of blog could be considered a collaborative blog, but sometimes these blogs are maintained by just one person. So I'm going to add another number to the list above. Celebrity blogs are just another form of celebrity fascination. These websites, like Perez Hilton, are a culmination of the author's opinion of, well, anything and everything news or celebrity related.

In my next couple posts I'm going to focus on the last two types of blogs: celebrity and personal. Get ready, it's going to be fascinating!

Caity

It should be no shock by now that I am totally wrapped up in the world of celebrities. I have subscribed to People Magazine for the past couple years, and before that I bought issue after issue from the checkout line. You might call me obsessed, but I prefer the term...interested...very interested.

Magazines are Today's tabloids. They are our most important source of printed gossip. They might even be our most trusted source of printed gossip. Because everything you read is true, right?

You might be thinking the internet would be our most "reliable" source for all breaking celebrity news. The internet is good for getting the gist of breaking stories, but magazines have had time to actually nail down details before their stories are sent out. That said, magazines do lie. There it is. I said it. Not everything they say is true, but it sure sounds good, doesn't it?

It's easy for us to take magazines, or any gossip source really, at their word because we don't know any better. We weren't there to observe what really happened that night at the club when so-and-so were seen snuggling all night, so naturally we'll believe whatever we're told.

The hard truth of the matter is that we must remember the "realities" that are the lives of celebrities are not necessarily reality. Magazines and other gossip resources have been known to touch-up stories to make them sound more appealing or to draw as much attention as they can.

An article from The Battalion discusses how celebrity news sources try to make their stories as relatable to their readers as possible. The more we as readers can relate to the lastest breaking story the more apt we are to continue buying the next issue to hit newstands.

Don't get me wrong, go out and buy People's newest issue featuring the newest wedding details of the pending nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Indulge your guilty pleasures. But remember to take everything you read with a grain of salt. Those magazines know how to pull on our gossip-strings and, by Golly, we've got to keep our heads on straight! Keep your head in the reality you know, and maybe just a toe or two dipped in the "reality" of celebrity lives. Because after all gossip magazines are just that, gossip. The rumor mill is a fun place to be, but don't forget to get off the mill every once and a while.

Back to Basics

Tabloids are our original prime source of all things celebrity. They are the "Momma Bear," the original magazine, the first entertainment news show, and twitter update. Of course they take a little longer than today's 5 second tweet, but if you want the news, you'll wait for the news.Tabloids have been around for decades and they've made an impact world-wide. Tabloids were originally just smaller newspapers having to do with the trendier topics of the day. While today's newspaper still have their gossip sections, tabloids have really developed into their own genre. In order to understand the various media sources we use today, I think it's important to get back to the basics and really understand where celebrity gossip got its start. And now we have something to blame our celebrity obsessions on. We can't help ourselves, it's born and bred into us! Aren't you glad to get that out of your system? Anyway...back to tabloids. The website How Stuff Works does a really good job of tracing the roots of tabloids and how they've changed. Beginning during the era of Yellow Journalism, tabloids have their roots in the papers that wrote made-up stories and made gross exaggerations in the stories of the day, which actually sounds a lot like today's tabloids. Over the years, tabloids have developed into a more agressive form of their original self. They will usually say anything to grab the reader's attention as they pass through the check-out line at the grocery store. And it pretty much always works. They get my attention every single time. Tabloids are really where all our obsessions began. I think having this information will make it easier to understand the popularity of magazines and entertainment news shows. It's going to be fascinating! I promise!

Fascinated,

Caity



Tweet, tweet, tweet

I think I'm going to begin my quest to figure out why our society has become so fascinated, perhaps even obsessed, with celebrities with the increasingly-popular Twitter. I'm sure you've all caught up on the trend, checking in on your favorite celebrities or athletes; maybe you even have a twitter yourself! What better way to know exactly what all your favorite celebs are doing than to have them tell you in 140 charactersor less? I mean really, Twitter is the ultimate way to "follow" a celebrity's every move without actually stalking them. Twitter really is a fascinating thing. Not many of us know celebrities, local or otherwise, and it's kind of fun to "hear" what they're thinking and know what they're doing. We can all be celebrities for a moment, if only vicariously. But why has Twitter become so popular so quickly? I think it has a little to do with our society's need to have all the information we want right away. Why wait for the next issue of People to come out when you can find out what the Kardashian sisters are doing this very minute? But I also think it has to do with our want to be personally connected to those we idolize. As Time's Steven Johnson points out in his article "How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live", Twitter allows us to have real-time conversations with those we "follow." And I think this has become the real draw for most people. When celebs give us the 411 on their latest goings-on we can immediately tell them exxactly just what we think about it, and they in turn can respond. And just like that you've communicated with someone you've never met and is potentially thousands of miles away. Just as Twitter connects us to Hollywood's A-list, the networking site also connects us to, say, College Station's A-list. Or Norman's A-list. Or Austin's A-list (hissss). Or I could go on and on, but the point is you can become personally connected to the celebrities who live just around the block without actually going just around the block. There are few "A-list celebrities" at A&M who don't have a Twitter. In the same way you can follow the Kardashian sisters, Ashton Kutcher, and Jason Witten, you can also follow Jerrod Johnson, Uzoma Nwachukwu, Dash Harris, BJ Holmes, even Coaches Sherman and Turgeon. And I do. As weird (and creepy) as it may sound I like to "hear" what they have to say, but I'm sure you do to. Fascinating? I think so!

Sure to be fascinated again,

Caity
(Twitter picture belongs to Technorati.com)

Obsessed

Welcome to Fascinating! In writing this blog I want to explore all the ways our society has become obsessed with celebrities and why. Everywhere we look and everywhere we go we are being updated about the personal details of the lives of celebrities. And I totally buy into it! I'll admit it, I'm a subscriber of People Magazine. In other words, I am hated by all celebrities. I can't help it though; their lives are just so...fascinating! Now, I think the attraction for me is just that they have so many more opportunities to do interesting things that I definitely don't. I'm a college student after all, no jetting off to Paris for me! I am what I would call a mild observer of the celebrity lifestyle, as are many people. However, there is a whole other class of observer that Wikipedia calls "Celebrity Worship Syndrome." We can take this diagnosis with a grain of salt since Wikipedia has its faults, but I don't think the author is really that far off the mark. As a society, we have become so interested in the inner workings of the lives of celebrities that we pay people thousands upon thousands of dollars to invade the privacy of celebrities and take their pictures.Throughout this blog I want to look at all the different outlets we use to obsess about celebrities. I'll look at magazines, the multiple categories of blogs, online news sites, entertainment news shows, and various other avenues. Together maybe we can figure out just what we find so enchanting!

Forever fascinated,

Caity