# Celebrity Adulation Makes Me Sick **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 15, 2003, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625 "2003-10-15T19:14:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2003, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/21 "2003-10-15T20:54:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by 5 time champ \* > \*\*Umm- Who are the Hilton sisters? \*\* A new breed of shit called “celebutantes”, spolied brat socialites who are famous. I hope Paris gets the clap tenfold. ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2003, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/22 "2003-10-15T20:54:50Z")
I got Jered’s autograph! I got Jered’s autograph! Bubba He was standing right outside of a Subway store. ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2003, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/23 "2003-10-15T21:07:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by World Eater \* > … And fuck Leno, my asshairs are funnier. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JuanitaTech \* > Yet, given the choice, I’d somehow find the will to watch Leno instead… **Juanita** , have I told you lately that I love you? ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2003, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/24 "2003-10-15T22:43:38Z")
On a related note, I was just flipping channels and went past Inside Edition, where they were listing the day’s “headlines” they were going to talk about. The last one on the list? “Ben Affleck shaves his goatee!” I kid you not. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2003, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/25 "2003-10-15T22:45:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Smeghead \* > \*\*On a related note, I was just flipping channels and went past Inside Edition, where they were listing the day’s “headlines” they were going to talk about. The last one on the list? > > “Ben Affleck shaves his goatee!” > > I kid you not. \*\* What a different world it would be if I was a Nielson family. ---
**Author:** ![Amethyst\_Autumn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@Amethyst\_Autumn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amethyst_Autumn)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2003, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/26 "2003-10-15T22:47:34Z")
Paris Hilton gets my nomination in the the-world’s-dumbest name competition. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Montresor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/839c29/32.png) [@Montresor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Montresor)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2003, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/27 "2003-10-15T23:30:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Amethyst Autumn \* > \*\*Paris Hilton gets my nomination in the the-world’s-dumbest name competition. > > 😃 \*\* Dumb name, maybe, but a nice address… While staying _with_ “Paris Hilton” should be punishment for, I don’t know, patricide or finishing the pot of coffee and not making more, staying _at_ (the) Paris Hilton might be nice. Ah hell, that’s a weak follow-up to a quality rant that I wanted to just chime in to support. Fight the power, man! The worst part is, as much as I agree with you, I’ve still made an ass of myself to meet some of the pop-culture footnotes I consider “celebrities.” ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2003, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/28 "2003-10-15T23:34:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Amethyst Autumn \* > \*\*Paris Hilton gets my nomination in the the-world’s-dumbest name competition. > > 😃 \*\* But does she provide room service? 😛 What disgusts me is that the adulation continues for the likes of O.J. Simpson and Mike Tyson. High profile criminals in the political game become ‘elder statesman’, rap singers that promote the killing of cops and the abuse of women are seen as role models, people like Bobbitt and his wife become minor celebrities, and Tanya Harding…well, who the hell can explain _that_ to me? ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2003, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/29 "2003-10-15T23:41:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Amethyst Autumn \* > Paris Hilton gets my nomination in the the-world’s-dumbest name competition. > > 😃 Oh come on now, isn’t anyone going to make the obvious joke; “… and she’s accomodated many more foreign pricks than her namesake.” ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Bruce\_Daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Daddy)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2003, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/30 "2003-10-15T23:42:40Z")
Mmmm…Hilton sisters. . . . ---
**Author:** ![Montresor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/839c29/32.png) [@Montresor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Montresor)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2003, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/31 "2003-10-15T23:44:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zenster \* > \*\*Oh come on now, isn’t anyone going to make the obvious joke; > > “… and she’s accomodated many more foreign pricks than her namesake.” \*\* Damn it, that’s much more funny than what I said. Now this thread is going to haunt me all evening, and the topic will have changed (perhaps even returned to to OP), before I come up with anything that clever. Nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2003, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/32 "2003-10-15T23:47:53Z")
**Eve** is correct. The human primate is hard-wired to organize itself into hierarchies of status. Those who are deemed important are the subject of vastly increased attention, whether adulatory or venemous, and neither rationally justifiable. Back when we lived in tribes and you didn’t know more than two hundred people face to face, status reflected actual social organization. In the modern world, by contrast, new technologies ride piggyback on this human instinct and create strange effects; due to the ease of worldwide travel and communication, and the global distribution of homogenized media, we know and recognize thousands of individuals, and our primate instincts cause us to crown people we’ll never meet as alpha chimps, or to attack those same people as threats to our very existence. If you beamed every single celebrity figure on the planet into the sun, we would have a whole new crop within a week. You can refuse to participate in the phenomenon, as I attempt to do, but you cannot deny that, as a generalization, for whatever reason, the human animal _needs_ these central cultural figures. ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2003, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/33 "2003-10-15T23:54:24Z")
Welcome aboard(s), **Montresor**! Always nice to see a new addition to the Bay Area contingent. Fear not, get a few thousand SDMB posts under your belt and you’ll find that sick, twisted and perverted witticisms veritably flow from your pen … er, keyboard. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/34 "2003-10-16T00:08:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cervaise \* > \*\ ***Eve** is correct. The human primate is hard-wired to organize itself into hierarchies of status. Those who are deemed important are the subject of vastly increased attention, whether adulatory or venemous, and neither rationally justifiable. > > Back when we lived in tribes and you didn’t know more than two hundred people face to face, status reflected actual social organization. In the modern world, by contrast, new technologies ride piggyback on this human instinct and create strange effects; due to the ease of worldwide travel and communication, and the global distribution of homogenized media, we know and recognize thousands of individuals, and our primate instincts cause us to crown people we’ll never meet as alpha chimps, or to attack those same people as threats to our very existence. > > If you beamed every single celebrity figure on the planet into the sun, we would have a whole new crop within a week. > > You can refuse to participate in the phenomenon, as I attempt to do, but you cannot deny that, as a generalization, for whatever reason, the human animal _needs_ these central cultural figures. \*\* True, but it’s seemed to reach an apex. ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/35 "2003-10-16T01:50:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cervaise \* > … If you beamed every single celebrity figure on the planet into the sun, we would have a whole new crop within a week … Mebbe so, but it’d be a good start. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/36 "2003-10-16T02:07:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zenster \* > **Mebbe so, but it’d be a good start.** Sure, but six and a half billion people later, you and I would be staring at each other over the teleport controls, flipping a coin to see who gets to be the last remaining person on earth. And then _that_ person would suffer a split personality. ---
**Author:** ![MelCthefirst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@MelCthefirst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MelCthefirst)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/37 "2003-10-16T02:19:39Z")
You see, I think the problem is when you actually believe people like Michael Jackson when they say “I love you all!” ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/38 "2003-10-16T03:58:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Zenster \* > \*\*Mebbe so, but it’d be a good start. \*\* Not only that, there’d finally be some reality TV worth watching. ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/39 "2003-10-16T07:24:56Z")
If you hate the worship of the rich, pretty people, you’re really going to want to [stay way the hell away from the TV](http://www.msnbc.com/news/978291.asp) this year: > [@](#): > > The clingy dress, the Chanel belt, the denim mini-skirt—if they were cruising the clubs, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie would be stunning. However, the Beverly Hills bombshells just relocated to Altus, Ark. (population: 817) Yes, another reality show, but that’s not all: > [@](#): > > “The Simple Life” debuts in December, and it already looks like the next reality-TV phenom. By then, we’ll be well primed by a slew of rich people behaving badly. Later this month MTV will launch “Rich Girls,” which follows Tommy Hilfiger’s daughter, Ally, and her spoiled friends as they navigate high school from the back of a limo. And HBO will air a documentary called “Born Rich,” in which Ivanka Trump, Georgina Bloomberg, magazine heir S. I. Newhouse IV and others discuss the burdens of inherited wealth. :rolleyes: Oh, can’t forget this wonderful quote: > [@](#): > > “What are wells for?” asks Hilton. “Water,” says mom Janet Leding. Richie is so bewildered, she needs to check her bearings. “Do you guys hang out at Wal-Mart?” she asks. “I’ve always heard that people hang out at Wal-Mart.” The Ledings look confused. So does Hilton. “What is Wal-Mart?” she asks. “Is it, like, they sell wall stuff?” ---
**Author:** ![Zenster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/cdc98d/32.png) [@Zenster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zenster)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2003, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625/40 "2003-10-16T08:04:58Z")
Like I said, “More foreign pricks than …” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/celebrity-adulation-makes-me-sick/207625.md?page=3)