Or any other celebrity babies, for that matter.
I’m not trying to be criticical or mocking; I simply don’t understand the interest. I think babies are cute, but only in person; I can’t imagine giving even half a damn about the child of total strangers. Yet People & other magazines are willing to shell out millions for exclusive pictures of them, apparently because they believe they’ll recoup that expense in increased sales and ad revenue.
Why do people care about celebrity babies?
Sending Pitt thread from IMHO to Cafe Society, because nobody here Jolie well cares.
It’s for all the twenty-something girly girls (who else follows this shit?) who dream of being mommies some day.
I like to look at babies. All kinds of babies. I’m not going to pay money to do it, but I like the fact that if the paparazzi must sell pictures of these kids, that the money is going to help babies who barely have a chance to make their first birthday.
I always go back to the primate thing, when pondering human behavior. We’re wired to live in groups with social hierarchies, and to defer to and curry favor from those higher in the hierarchy. The most important person would end up being the person whose face and habits were best known by the most number of persons. We may be wired to respond to noticing that others around us know someone’s face and habits by showing interest in their face and habits - so that we don’t make the mistake of slighting a powerful person that we just haven’t met yet.
Modern media and advertising are hitting that button for other purposes. So, it’s good to be the King. Having the King like you is next best. Fawning over royal spawn may make the King like you.
I have a mild interest in seeing photos of celebrities’ babies. Somehow it is perversely satisfying when the child of two Beautiful People is less than beautiful (as in the case of the rather ordinary-looking Suri Cruise. Sometimes, of course, the offspring is startlingly gorgeous, but that’s OK too. I can always comfort myself with the thought that, if you hold the kid upside down and shake it, no Mensa membership card is gonna fall out of its pockets.
I don’t understand what you mean. That is a very pretty little girl, even ignorning the fact that her “father” is from the dark planet Zebuon.
I do care about what they name the babies – but I also read the birth announcments in my local paper every week. I like names. I do think it’s cute to see them, but I’m not gonna buy a magazine because of it. I’ll just look at the cover while standing in line at the grocery store. I do think it’s awesome that the Jolie-Pitts give all that money to people/organizations who could use it.
Personally I couldn’t care less- I’ve seen babies before and these probably are the same basic type as the ones I’ve seen. What I can’t believe isn’t the public interest but the amount of public interest- they sold the first photo rights to People Magazine for $14 MILLION! Jeez. (My understanding is that most of the money’s going to charity, so that’s good, but damn… if People’s about $5 on the coverstand, are the pics really going to sell 2.8 million more copies than normal?)
somehow the fuss over these babies doesn’t bother me since the parents are donating the photo money to charity.
I’d pick up the magazine in a waiting room, but I won’t spend money on it myself.
Someone asked a varient of this question in GQ not that long ago, and the consensus was no.
Personally, I have to admit that I read a People magazine article about the Jolie-Pitt twins, but did not go out of my way to acquire it–my seatmate on a flight had it, and when she finished offered it to me, and we both agreed that it was a kind of guilty pleasure perfect for airline travel.
Her bizarre parents notwithstanding, Suri’s a beautiful child IMO.
What I don’t understand is the clamor for celeb newborn baby photos, as most newborns tend to look the same.
I agree. Not only is she a cute kid, but she’s spit and image of her mother, who I find attractive in a “girl next door” kind of way.
Oh dear, oh dear… I can’t believe no one has congratulated you on this masterful summary of the situation yet.
Let me, sir, be the first to wave my hat and shout “Hooray! Well done!”
Re: the OP, I have no idea. It completely mystifies me, and yet magazines must make enough from sales to recoup the large outlays involved in obtaining the pictures.
Spitting image?
She’s a cute kid now, but she was an ugly baby. Combine that with her parents hiding her away for the first few months of her life and the eventual “reveal” gets a double backlash.
Suri Cruise is only cute in the way all little children that age are cute. There’s nothing remarkable about her looks at this point. Cite: Cute non-celebrity child of approximately the same age.
On topic: I think as a whole, we think we know celebrities because we become intimately acquainted with the characters they play on movies and television. They are as familiar as our own family members, especially in the case of long-running TV series actors. Therefore, we want to share in their lives.
Upon examination, it really makes no sense, but I maintain it’s the familiarity aspect.
I think you can see a lot of Tom Cruise in her as well, however rumors are still circulating the internet that he isn’t her bio father, or that they faked the pregnancy, or both.
For weeks I’ve been wishing the Jolie-Pitts would adopt Bret Favre, and they’d all disappear from my home page headlines.
I’d be more likely to buy an issue of People Magazine if they announced that instead of buying celebrity baby photos for $14 million they were giving $14 million to a hunger relief charity, or an AIDS prevention effort.
I guess it’s shrewd of the Jolie-Pitts to recognize that there’s money available for this “commodity” that they have, and to turn that into revenue for a cause that’s important to them, but byt participating at all they’re only perpetuating the weirdness that makes someone in a conference room say “Offer them $15 million” about…baby pictures.
I absolutley adore my son, and have since before he was born, and think that he’s a pretty handsome kid. For the first many weeks though, he was not very photogenic. That didn’t come 'til much later.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of any of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick’s kids.
