Lately, there’s been a question constantly popping up in my head, and my recent trip to Graceland kinda brought it up again: what’s up with people obsessing over celebrities?
I don’t think we’re the only country to obsess over celebrities and their lives, but the U.S. seems to do a pretty good job at selling the idea to the general public that certain people should be put up on pedestals while creating jobs that are specifically geared towards stalking and photographing said people on said pedestals.
When did we become so fascinated with other people’s lives? Well, after typing that sentence out, I’d be a hypocrite if I said I didn’t care sometimes. Media such as movies and television series were created to entertain us, and give us the chance to escape our daily routines and the nature of our own harsh reality. As written scripts became too “scripted”, we let reality television creep in as if we needed to concentrate on others with real life tragedy to, in a way, make us feel better about our own menial lives. But that’s not enough. Magazines and tabloids sit on stands to remind us to keep up to date with people we don’t even know by telling us things we don’t need to know.
I’ve come to realize that it’s all about accessibility. Information for filming locations will always be leaked. Film stars and musicians tour to support their most recent releases, in which there will always be tour dates to look up. Interviews are not conducted in hidden places. There will never be a sense of privacy for celebrities unfortunately. They are like the normal, everyday kind – they have places to be and people to see, and it will always be documented for the world to look at. There’s no way around it.
Because of the Internet, a click of a button can let you view photos and videos – on Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, etc. We see their faces constantly, and it’s not hard to become fascinated or infatuated with known people you don’t really know.
For me personally, I watch a whole lot of movies. Compared to the amount of new people I meet? The ratio is like 100:1. It’s kinda sad. But with the amount of watching I do, I see a lot of the same actors, and they become a familiar face. I look up the movies on IMDB, I look up actors’ profiles on IMDB, I start Youtubing videos on the actors, and I eventually find myself stuck on a cyclical spree learning about these people, slowly developing fascinations, reading their every word on Twitter, etc. The accessibility makes internet stalking too easy. I’ve fallen into that a few times and had to catch myself fast before it reached a creepy level. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has found myself in this scenario.
Talking about celebrities being “created” to be viewed as superhumans is something I won’t get into now, but that’s basically what the media does. They put celebrities on display trying to create a “standard”, advertising, marketing, and selling celebrities telling the general public what standards should be. We all fall for the airbrushed image – it’s no wonder why we’re all obsessed. It’s as if we’re all trapped in this daydream fed unrealistic standards making it difficult for us to interact with everyday folk because we’re hoping that everyone we meet will remind us of Chris Pratt. Amiright?
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