What’s with the obsession with the famous?

Seriously? Have we devalued our own lives to such a degree that we’re living as a culture vicariously through those who entertain and amuse us?

There are entire television networks whose reason for existence is to share with us every single detail of the lives of every single person who has gained a modicum of fame. For Chrissakes, we don’t just have a TMZ.com website sharing every mundane detail with us, there’s also a half hour TV show where we watch the various ‘stories’ being pitched! And they wouldn’t keep shit like that on television if it wasn’t pulling ratings. People will pay hundreds and thousands of dollars for the stray hair of some famous human being, and they’re treated as anything close to normal after making a purchase like that.

Meanwhile, anyone with a shred of fame does everything in their power to keep a death grip on it. Come on, is ANYONE so desperate that they actually give a flying fuck about what Judge Joe Brown or Rosie O’Donnell is doing? Really? You need serious help. And yet these people keep leeching at the teat as long as they can, and someone somewhere actually is dying to know what some extra from The Hills had in her omelette that morning.

And while I am admittedly sports obsessed, I could give a shit what any particular professional athlete is doing with their time away from the field of play (aside from, you know, trying to ensure that one of them doesn’t shoot and/or drunkenly crash in to me). Some soccer player is making his way through the phone book of Brazilian super models? Good for him. I’m supposed to care…why exactly? Or are we all pretending we had a chance in Hell at pulling that trim if it wasn’t for that goddamn millionaire athlete foiling our chances worse than ‘those meddling kids’ ever foiled a wannabe bad guy in any episode of Scooby Doo?

And the thing is, I get the distinct idea that it isn’t so much obsession anymore with celebrities, it’s this sick desire to BE someone. This, more than anything else, is what I blame the glut of reality television for : they have created this image that anyone can be ‘somebody’, and we’ve glorified the role of ‘somebody’ to a ridiculous degree in the Western world. What everyone fails to notice while pining to hit big is that people who hit big are :

-notably attractive.

-notably unattractive and talented in a field normally reserved for the attractive (The Susan Boyle Effect)

-notably talented.

-notably untalented. (Christ, William Hung was famous enough for 11 minutes that even I know who he is)

That’s it. If you’re ugly, you goddamn well better be amazing at something. No? Piss off, nobody cares. Welcome to the society you helped to create with your fixation in the first place.

What’s more repulsive to me personally is that this bullshit has permeated it’s way so deeply in to the mainstream that it has become a part of news reporting. Tune in to your nightly news, and you’re as likely to see a story about what Madonna’s up to as you are to find out actual information about what’s happening around you. And while it’s convenient and easy to pretend ‘it’s all the networks’, the networks are giving us what we tell them we want through viewer numbers. We’re celebrity obsessed whores, and we’re getting what we deserve.

But why is that the case? This is the part I truly do not understand…why do we care so desperately about these people? Hell, I’m not immune :

ThatKevinSmith Via @Feris_Othman “Do you consider yrself a talent w/ international appeal” Only talent I ever had was being able to suck my own dick at 18.

@ThatKevinSmith You realize that particular talent essentially makes you a living God amongst dudes everywhere, right?

ThatKevinSmith Via @ElCliff76 “that talent makes you a living God amongst dudes everywhere” Gotta be honest: the @FleshLight feels better (not a paid ad).

That’s the text of a recent Twitter ‘conversation’. It’s as classy as my regular conversations, only it’s with a famous person. And I’m not gonna lie…I was fairly jacked that I got a response back. “Haha, look who’s responding to me!” And maybe that’s part of it. Maybe it’s this whole “You’re supposedly bigger than I am, now DANCE, monkey!” sort of power trip going on. And of course, some of it is simply wanting to escape a world where everything seems increasingly unstable and ready to collapse and it’s so far above our grasp that we have absolutely no say in what will happen. I get that…I just don’t get the why it has to become all consuming. All that I do know is that I’m not entirely immune. And that’s really what planted the seed of this whole post…why? Why did I react that way to having Kevin Smith answer me back? Why does that matter any differently than having someone who I actually spend time with answer me?

And yes, I do find it funny that THAT was the big question I had in my head after that little snippet of conversation. Not anything to do with discussing the topic of self blow jobs and masturbatory aids with some other dude…no, my big question is “Why does this person replying matter to me?” I’m either cool with everything, or my history of lewd crudeness has inured me to just about any topic of conversation possible.

So, I’m no closer to an answer than I was a few hours ago, but I’m going to make a request. If you ever find me gossiping about which famous person is fucking another famous person, or actually being earnest in my perusal of tabloid, please beat me about the head until the surrounding area is splattered with my gray matter. I don’t get the obsession, and I don’t want to…yet I fear it may be contagious.