In the thread on which would you rather be, a singer or an athlete, someone brought up that the difference between athletic groupies and singer groupies was substantial.
Which made me wonder. Being an athlete is such a huge deal in high school whereas glee club and drama club are considered lame. But in the world of celebrities, why is there more love for singers/actors? Or is it that really big celebrities, athletes or singers, in general are just bigger than athletes?
Interesting question.
I’d say that at the highest levels there’s little difference between the quality of ass that athletes and musicians get; I mean, Nick Lachey and Tony Romo are both horribly overrated and both nailed the delectable but dumb Jessica Simpson.
Yeah. It makes me wonder about the low levels. Does the lead singer of a semi well known indie/hipster band get more chicks than a minor leagues baseball player?
Being an athlete is, for lack of a better word “Macho” in high school.
Singing for a man is considered effiminate and therfore not.
Boys don’t want to be “femme.” Remember the “Brady Bunch” episode where Peter was on both the Football team and in the Glee Club.
What do people say “Actors, oh they’re all gay.”
And it makes sense that gay people would go into acting. After all until very recently teens never came out. They spend the first 18 years of thier lives “pretending” to be straight to everyone.
So what is acting? Pretending. So it makes sense they’d be good at it, with all the real life practice they’ve had
So for boys,
Athlete = Macho
Singing/acting = Femme
For girls in HS they see athletics as for lack of a better word, “Butch” and “Dyke-ish”
Obviously these aren’t hard and fast rules, but overall general feelings
After adulthood, there are more actor/singer groupies simply because their are more ways to become famous via singing and acting then via sports.
Also remember you can teach an athlete to act. OK they won’t be brilliant but you can teach them to act acceptably, such as Michael Phelps on “Saturday Night Live,” or Alex Karras on “Webster.”
It’s not very likely you’d find many actors would could play pro or even semi-pro football, baseball, or basketball on an acceptable level.
While surfing past that “Millionaire Matchmaker” show, I caught a moment where the eponymous matchmaker and her female client were on the phne berating the male after regretable first-date intercourse, scolding him with the information that “women require an emotional connection before they are ready to have sex.”
Which is true, but is not the noble “guys just wanna get laid while women are loving, nurturing beings” sentiment it seems, when it also describes the emotional connection that drives young women to felate roadies in order to be slipped into rock stars’ hotel suites?
My WAG: both the sports star and entertaiment star have status, which is appealing on the same base level to women as large boobs are to men, but the entertainment celebrity creates a stronger emotional response through drama and/or music.
This is interesting, since the sports star shows more, um, evolutionary desirability by demonstrating dominance over other males. You’d think his sperm would be more desirable. Maybe this means women don’t give a shit about their kids, they just want to get laid, too.
But even among teenagers, they like singers/actors who are celebs. Just not in high school I guess. I don’t really get why they can admire some teenybopper group or Britney Spears or Jessica Simpson or Beyonce or that Twilight guy but at the same time think anyone their age doing that is lame.
I’m going to say that limited shelf life affects athletes. Mats Sundin is a retired hockey player. He isn’t even 40 yet. Mick Jagger still prances around in tight leather pants and girls throw their panties at him. He’s been doing that for longer than Sundin has been alive. They are with you longer and age with you, whereas, aside from the great superstar athletes who you’ll see in commercials, lots of pro athletes fade into the background after their prime.
I think fans can bond more emotionally to music/acting because people respond to performances more personally. Fans feel more connected to singers/actors who are sort of representing them via lyrics or characters. Eg/ Most people an related to at least one character from The Breakfast Club, and/or you can wallow in self pity with R.E.M. warbling “eeeeverybody huuuuuuuuurts” to go along with your misery. It isn’t really a personal connection, but it feels like more of a bond than the hero worship of rooting fo ryour home team.
That’s true, Swallowed. Seeing people acting or singing feels more relevant for me but then I don’t watch sports at all.
I only know one minor league baseball player. Anywhere we went, women did double-takes. Women walked into walls and things because they were staring at him and not watching where they were going.
It was like being in a cartoon.
He had “retired” at 25 - been cut, basically - and you’d not have known he was a professional athlete. He just happened to be 6’6" and built like a Greek god’s more athletic cousin. He was also apparently jaw-droppingly handsome.
So I guess he’d have done just as well with the ladies if he was a singer, and this post is not helpful. I’m just jealous. 