The issue was raised in another thread but we were told it was off-topic there. So here’s a thread on the topic.
Should we care about celebrities? Obviously there is a widespread issue in what celebrities are doing. Most of us have never met Jennifer Aniston or George Clooney or Taylor Swift but we follow reports on their personal lives.
Does it make any sense? Is there any rational explanation we can offer? Or is our behavior fundamentally irrational?
would they be celebrities if people don’t care?
Maybe we need to separate our interest our interest in the performance from interest in the performer. The fact that we can enjoy Brad Pitt in a movie doesn’t mean we have to care about Brad Pitt’s relationship with Angelina Jolie.
i’m not sure that the interest is separate rather than a continuum. if you like a celebrity, you might look for more of his or her work. when that is not enough you look for stuff outside of work.
To some degree, yes. However, there will be instances when the celebrity’s non-performance activities bleed over into our ability to admire his work. No names need be given; we can all think of a really good performer who, in his blog, or on tv, or on the street, has been so incredibly odious that his work has been poisoned for us by his misbehavior.
In general, following celebrities is a basic feature of human nature. As social animals, we focus on role-models. We compare notes, and base much of our culture on this. It helps us form our chains of social dominance. “You don’t like Beyonce? What cave did you crawl out of?”
Maybe, in some ultimate abstract level of idealism, we shouldn’t. We are all, each, our own celebrities. We live our own lives. Who needs Beyonce?
But in practice, as social animals, we follow fashions in this, as in much else. Most of the time, it’s harmless, and even a little fun.
Well, since I’m the one who got a threadshit warning in the thread that spawned this, I guess I feel a need to respond.
I don’t fucking get it at all. Why should I care what (for example) Jennifer Aniston or George Clooney or Taylor Swift do in their personal lives? I don’t care. I don’t care in the least. I don’t have any kind of pedestal for them and why should I?
I may enjoy what they produce as entertainment, but so what? In the CanaDoper thread recently we were discussing the fact that none of us were entirely sure how many children our Prime Minister had, or what their names and ages might be. We came to the conclusion that we rather liked the fact that we didn’t know or care.
I don’t get the celebrity worship that people have. These people aren’t any different than me or you. In no way could most of them do what I do for a living; they don’t have the education, skills or experience. They are in no way interested in my personal life and for similar reasons I am in no way interested in their personal life.
It baffles me to the point that I got a warning for threadshitting and then got told to stay out of the thread. Intelligent people caring what so-called celebrities do on their own time away from the camera is strange. I realize there’s a whole industry built on this but it just makes me shake my head that people actually pay attention to this kind of shit.
It certainly isn’t news. It in no way affects you. There’s some kind of hero-worship going on here that makes me wonder about your own personal self-esteem, self-worth and place in society.
Absolutely not. As it’s been mentioned before, they’re just people. I don’t care about the life of people I don’t know in my environment, why should I care theirs?
Though I can understand the fascination, hey I was a teenage girl once.
What I don’t understand is the fascination for talentless hack who have done nothing but exist, yes I’m looking at you Kardashian sisters, Snookie and co. and Paris Hilton?? Why oh why are their faces plastered everywhere and their lives forced down our throat?
I have no interest whatsoever in celebrities. It’s one of the least engaging things I can imagine.
But if I squint a little, I kind of get it. I’ve always figured they took the role of the old Greek gods. They are larger than life figures in which we see our own foibles, anxieties, and aspirations played out. What is in a copy of US magazine but images of heaven (the fabulous wedding, the beautiful mansion), hell (the descent into drug abuse and other vices), a handful of morality tales (Britney Speares, Princess Di, etc.), a little bit of magic (try this new celeb miracle diet!) and some Zeus-style scandalous sex?
Well, since you asked, I’ll drag out my hobby horse. I think a lot of entertainment consumers have difficulty applying the same separation standards to their entertainment providers that they apply to other goods or services providers. In all fairness, sometimes the entertainment providers fail to separate their entertainment from their personal issues.
To illustrate by example, if I go to a restaurant, I don’t really care if the cook has a baby on the way, or who the waiter voted for in the last election. I of course don’t mind this information being disseminated among those involved, or those just curious. I just want my order recorded properly, and prepared as requested.
At the same time, I would find it odd to hear a customer inquire about voting habits or gravid employees. The same oddness would apply to statements from the staff concerning such issues “while on duty”.
If I might guess at the main point of the OP though, it might be the public display of distress when misfortune befalls a public figure. Not to dismiss the emotions evoked any time we are reminded of our common fate, I feel it is proper for “the public” to mourn the loss of someone who lightened their daily lives, and acknowledge the loss of a fellow human. But it is also wise to remember that these public persona’s were not family or friends. Nor should they have been.
Well, lots of posts while formatting my opus. I guess I was wrong in that last paragraph. To put it into street language, an entertainer can do or say any legal thing “offstage”, and I will give wide latitude to that. If you get “onstage” (my dime) to promote a particular viewpoint (I’m referring to commentary, not say, song selection), I think a boundary has been crossed unnecessarily.
nm
I think it sort of takes the place of village gossip. My gf’s mother grew up in a Vietnamese village, and even though she hasn’t lived there in 20 years and only visits once every couple years, by talking to other immigrants, her family and friends she still manages to keep track of the gossip regarding what must be tens of families and hundreds of people in a third-world village on the other side of the planet. Its important enough for her to do so that she puts a decent amount of effort into it.
I figure that sort of thing must’ve been basically the normal human condition for thousands of years. And it serves a purpose. The gossip enforces societal norms, demonstrates mistakes and successes of others we can try and avoid/emulate, signals the person who knows the gossip as an “insider” and trading gossip is a good bonding activity for the gossipers.
In modern life, there’s a lot less opportunity for that, especially for people that leave their home towns or neighbourhoods. Our circle of intimates tend to be smaller, and they don’t necessarily know each other. My work friends have never met my friends from college, and my family members haven’t met most of my colleagues at my old job. All but the most scandalous gossip from one group would be pretty boring to members of the other groups.
But we all know who Paris Hilton is.
“They’re actors. They’re the opposite of people.” – Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
No. At least no further than their entertainment value.
Right. But the nature of that value will vary for different people. Personally, I am sometimes interested in, not so much details of anyone’s personal life, but expressions, outside their official work, of certain artists’ and writers’ views that inform my picture of their mind. This in turn informs my understanding and appreciation of their work.
That’s fine. It doesn’t sound like you’re doing this just because someone is a celebrity.
Should we? Who’s to say? If you want to care, knock yourself out. If you don’t wan to, good on you.
Is the OP actually asking whether there is some objectively definable argument about whether we should care about them or not?
One thing I will say is, that knowing the kind of animal we are, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that so many people do care about celebrities. If that means we should care, then so be it.
i don’t get it. why are you guys so put off by people’s interest in a subject? i don’t piss in threads on Star Trek, wondering why people devote so much energy in fictional characters and their actors. in fact, isn’t a large part of a message board devoted to discussion on matters that would in no way affect posters? sitting on the opposite side of the world, i can look at America and shake my head at some people’s support of Dorner and the apparent lack of care about the police’s ineptitude, having apparently lost interest with the police involved with the truck shooting in favour of a legless murderer in another continent. i would not, however, enter an I <3 LAPD thread and dis its existence.
people have different interests, and you can choose to, well, not be interested. it is certainly threadshitting and being a jerk, however, to enter a thread and openly deride people for a widely accepted activity. yes, you don’t have tv, don’t have Facebook, is not interested in Avatar and have no idea what Twitter is. i’ll get off your lawn and i hope you’ll keep off mine.
I don’t think celebrity worship is the appropriate term. After all, a lot of the information we get about celebrities is pretty mundane or even tawdry.
It’s celebrity gossip and I think Simplicio has a good point. The modern media has made it possible for us to be aware of people who we never meet. But our ten thousand year old brains were evolved to think of the people we know of as our community. So we care about what celebrities are doing for the same reason we care about what the neighbours are doing.
What do you mean, “we”?
Unless “follow reports on their personal lives” means reading the headlines in the trash papers while waiting in the supermarket checkout line.*
*or scanning through one of the People magazines that thoughtful persons have left by the breakroom microwave for the 3 minutes it takes to nuke my lunch.
I think Simplicio nailed it (though I also like even sven’s theory). I think we (collectively—some individuals more than others) evolved to be very interested in the private lives of the people in our village, the people we see often. In the modern world, celebrities are among the people we “see” often.