I always think of it as an extension of mythology. In the old days they had stories of the sexual exploits, ethereal beauty, twisted family life and feats of strength and courage of the old pagan gods.
Nowadays we don’t have that, so we mythologize celebrities instead.
I was thinking along the same lines as Declan. Not only is it safer to gossip about celebrities, it takes away the rudeness aspect. We can like an actor, but still talk crap about them, and not feel bad about it. Many of us prefer not to do that to our friends. But I’m not in the category of women who give a shit about celebrity whatnots, unless it’s particularly fascinating, so I may be full of it.
I didn’t say it was. I did give one explanation for why some women feel the need for augmentation.
So, all women do? All I was saying was that not all women do so. From girl scout camp to varsity swim team to nursing college to breastfeeding babies–never heard of women comparing breast size. Obviously, YMdidV.
Hey now wait a minute here! Entertainment Weekly is NOT a gossip mag. It has ONE gossip page per issue, which I more often than not skip right over. The rest of it is Entertainment NEWS (real news, like what is happening in the INDUSTRY, not gossip news), interviews and reviews.
Try this as an experiment- I have never known it to fail. Buy a People (or Star or any other gossip mag), do the “hair on the cover” trick and lay it within easy arm’s reach of somebody- male or female- who claims to have no interest. Walk away and return in a few minutes- it will have been opened. Almost everybody will read these things, regardless of age or gender.
I see it as light escapism and a common mythological figure to compare notes on. It would be horrendously rude to comment to a near stranger on how ugly the checkout clerk’s eyeshadow is (especially if it’s a guy), but commenting on how crazy the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes marriage is or Angelina’s lips or whatever is 1- not going to reach Angie/Tom/Katie’s ears anyway 2- if by some miracle it does it’ll be something they’ve heard a million times before and many times worse 3- if by some miracle it does they’re zillionaires who put themselves in the “public figure” business.
Plus, as mentioned above, finding fault with the perfect means we’re a bit closer to them.
How smart are whips?
I will just say that as a guy- I will occasionally flip through a People or whatever, usually because they are filled with pretty people looking their prettiest. (The womens so much not the guys). So while my wife likes to assess them, I just like to ogle. Sort of like a diet Maxim or something.
Hmmm…
How is this set up, though? Is it a boring room with one table and one magazine? I’d read pretty much anything in that situation. But what would happen if you also put copies of Guns and Ammo, Fast V8s etc? Conversely, what if you only took one male-oriented magazine and left it there with a woman alone in the room? I reckon she’d read it, but that doesn’t say much.
I have read women’s magazines before. I’ve also read photography ones, but I’m not a photographer. But the fact that doctors’ waiting rooms only seem to have women’s mags and photography ones (for some inexplicable reason) might have a lot to do with it.
That said, I’m not overly interested in the extremely male ones either, but I’ll still read Porsche Owners’ Monthly when I’m waiting for the mechanic to fix my car. Luckily, my doctor has a Time subscription, so I read old copies of that - which is more my scene.
I think I’ve seen that movie.
Any light breeze can dislogde a hair, even one generated by someone just walking by.
Really, that’s what happened.
Gossiping is fun and bonding. If they are talking about someone else then they are not talking about you! Celebs are just the new neighhbours.
Yes of course they are neighbours you will never know but chit chat is fun.
I guess it depends on how you interpret the term “comparing”. We never lined up in front of a mirror together, stripped naked and made charts of cup sizes and band widths. But we did notice the amount of attention the boys paid to Amy, and since she didn’t seem any more appealing than we were, we put it down to the impressively enormous bosom (which she had reduced last year). When we were mad at her, her bust size was a negative…when we liked her, we wished we had a portion of her endowments. And likewise we’d notice those girls who were still waiting to sprout at age 18, and either felt sorry for them or ridiculed them. But a lot of the comparison was done without saying anything out loud…we noticed, but we didn’t talk about it.
Ah–now, that makes more sense. I still didn’t participate (I was always happy to have my 34 As, now sadly, gone with the slimness of girlhood…). Thanks for the clarification!
What is the hair on the cover trick re the mags? 
I feel like y’all are speaking in code. 
I was going to post that!
I read Entertainment Weekly for the reviews of film, TV, music, books and theater and the feature articles about, or interviews with, the creators of the above. There is a page wasted on photos of these people at parties, and another two pages wasted on who is getting married, divorced, etc. But 95% of the editorial content of Entertainment Weekly is specifically about entertainment!
Contrary, please retract your vile slander.
Celebrity gossip? Because going on and on about it won’t hurt anyone they know directly (unless the celebs in question are in their circle of friends – and even then, plenty of celebs read tabloids). As with porn, they’re consumed heavily by one gender over another 'cause that’s the gender they’re targeting. As soon as you start to rejig things i.e. add a few articles, change some adds, voila Maxim and a new demographic.
My theory is that back in the day, like the early 20th century and beyond, women relied on radio and television and movies for escapism because they weren’t doing much else fun (cleaning, cooking, child-rearing. ho-hum.) So the gossip mediums - I assume magazines and newspaper gossip columns - were aimed at women. It just carried through history as something that women did and continued to be aimed at women, like cookbooks and cleaning product commercials.
Nowadays guys and girls both engage in celebrity gossip, just like they equally engage in cooking and cleaning. But it’s still thought of as a “woman thing” even though we know it’s not really true.
ETA: Yeah totally what Cat Fight said, 'cept I missed her post. :smack:
Hmm, there sure have been a lot of threads on the SDMB that rightly shouldn’t exist then, since they were gossip threads started by men with heavy participation by men.
Or I just imagined it. You know how women are.
Yeah, and Playboy has great articles in it.
Entertainment industry “news” is 60%+ gossip - its just gossip on who is working where, who got what budget, and what movies are expected to be hot - instead of who is sleeping with/divorcing/having a baby with whom. EW isn’t exactly Variety (which has its share of gossip), or even Cinefex.
I think there are two elements to this:
1.) Why gossip about celebrities? Because celebrities have replaced the role of the lords and ladies of the olden days. They are glamorous and they lead lives way beyond what most of us can imagine. The ridiculousness of their lives (like the >$20,000 birthday party thrown for 2-year-old Suri) is what makes it interesting.
2.) Why gossip at all? Because gossip is part of the social complexity of human groups. Human groups are advantageous to survival, and developing social intelligence was a primary driving force behind the evolution of the human brain. (I think I can find a cite for this if anyone wants it, but no time right now.) I think it’s for this reason that people will readily admit they are bad at math, but social awkwardness is looked down upon. It is important to know who is doing what, where and why if you want a good place in your group. We gossip about celebrities because it is a harmless way of honing our social intelligence. Also, both men and women gossip, although the topic of their gossip may differ.
Quite correct. I should have said “sharp as a tack.”