Whats this obsession with all things 'celebrity'?

Colonel Sanders

My girlfriend usually buys a thrashy mag or 2 most weekends. Was in Centra with her today and was amazed at the number of such magazines. Also thumbed through a few and must say I hadn't heard of many people in them. I was informed that a lot of them are pretty z list (shagged someone famous, is a drinking pal of some other tit who calls himself a celebrity etc).

Add in all the monsense TV we see about this sort of sh!te and I just got wondering what is it with these people that is so interesting considering they've done nothing to deserve the title 'celebrity'

Jesus Wept

I'm a man, I don't get it, I find the level of interest irrating and celebs bore me.

I also choke on my rice krispies when people who are in fair city (and the like, etc etc) are referred to as 'celebs'.

The word has lost all meaning.

galwayrush

Best to ignore all that crap, it's gone beyond a joke at this stage.:mad:

Terry

It's car crash reality.
Well, that's what it is for me anyway.
I love watching these people posing for pictures, opening supermarkets and then drinking themselves to death.

Dave!

People get their kicks in different ways... I personally think it's a load of sh*te, but whatr ya gonna do......

Ruu_Old

Thank god for celebs like Paris Hilton. 'She provides beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives'.

Kintarō Hattori

I don't get it myself. If I was walking down the street and the Cruiser were to come up and say to me 'Hey I'm Tom Cruise', I would have no hesitation in replying, 'That's Great' and continuing on with my business. They are just other people, I'll live my life and let them live theirs. Unless they have some direct influence on my life I have no interest in them. Not in the sense that I couldn't give a shlit, but in the sense that I'm sure they'd just prefer to go about their daily business unbothered.
I never understand why people are interested in celebrities. So what?! I'm sure you must have much more interesting things to be doing than reading about X,Y & Z.

The Bollox

this shite is all over the place aswell. I remember glancing at Sky News in a friends house a few weeks ago and the headline read "David Becham has landed at [enter airport here]" I mean surely there is something on the news more interesting than some guy landing at some airport.

the one celeb who really boils my blood is Jade Goody. what a fucking moron!

Tha Gopher

In fairness my mates landlady gets a pretty good mag. Any time im up fr a few cans i take a look, aint a page without either Jessica Simpson or some ride advertising shampoo

Compare that to the sh1te magazine my female hpousemate buys. It seems to specialise in fat celebrities and "caught without makeup" shock pics. Wouldnt touch hers if i was paid.

WindSock

People like celebrities because they have become familiar to them.

Beruthiel

Colonel wrote:

Was in Centra with her today and was amazed at the number of such magazines.

That for me is the scary part, that many mags means lots of women buy this trash.
Why you would waste your free time reading that tripe is beyond me, if you lived three life times you still wouldn't get through all the wonderful books out there.

Pigman II

It's no different to following a sports team, or being a fan of fashion, or buying lots of electronic gadgets or taking drugs. It's just something superfluous to fill up the void in your empty little life.

OctavarIan

It makes money off gossipy women who buy the magazines for something to gossip about to other women. "Did ye know dat Mary one was after caught coming ou' of a nightclub drunk off her arse!? What's de world coming te?

Fanny Cradock

People are obviously looking for some meaning in their life. Maybe the sexy and scandalous world of the celebrity will provide that? It is the new religion for many folks out there.

projectmayhem

Pigman II wrote:

It's no different to following a sports team, or being a fan of fashion, or buying lots of electronic gadgets or taking drugs. It's just something superfluous to fill up the void in your empty little life.

supporting a sports team, enjoying fashion, being a gadget freak or taking drugs (on a recreational basis) are all things we do to make ourselves feel good because we can, like following the lives of celebrities, but reading these magazines to find out lindsay lohan's latest socialite move involve a level of obsession with random strangers who do nothing special for the most part is nowhere near on a par with supporting Man Utd. while wearing Bershka clothes with your iPhone & smoking some weed.

like Beruthiel said, these women like to read, so why not pick up an interesting book that may actual expand your mind and not feed your weird obsession with strangers.

zuutroy

Let 'em do what they want....It's the same as any other 'interest'. I don't read books and there ain't not nothing wrong with me for sure.

Pigman II

projectmayhem wrote:

supporting a sports team, enjoying fashion, being a gadget freak or taking drugs (on a recreational basis) are all things we do to make ourselves feel good because we can, like following the lives of celebrities, but reading these magazines to find out lindsay lohan's latest socialite move involve a level of obsession with random strangers who do nothing special for the most part is nowhere near on a par with supporting Man Utd. while wearing Bershka clothes with your iPhone & smoking some weed.

like Beruthiel said, these women like to read, so why not pick up an interesting book that may actual expand your mind and not feed your weird obsession with strangers.

There's no cental difference as far as I can tell. All these pursuits are just passive exercises in distracting yourself for a while. I don't rate any one of them superior or inferior to the other.

You talk about the aforementioned being different because most people feel good doing them but I'm sure following and discussing these celeb issues makes those readers feel good too.

Plus if you're all about setting standards (ie they should go read a book) then I could tell you to support Milan instead of ManU, do coke instead of weed, buy this fashion rather than that fashion, or get a Bang&Olufsen instead of a Panasonic. If these people enjoy & prefer to read Now rather than Nietzsche I'd consider anyone who tells them to do otherwise as pretentious.

Colonel Sanders

zuutroy wrote:

Let 'em do what they want....It's the same as any other 'interest'. I don't read books and there ain't not nothing wrong with me for sure.

Its just that I don't understand how this culture is so rampant and also how people can be interested in such 'celebrities' who have done nothing apart from shag someone famous.

Feel free to disagree but I think its a sad reflection on the mentality of people. The day before the general election and most of the people I work with were still talking about some nonsense that had been on MTV the night before.

eoin5

Whatever about paris hilton serious people who have something public to say get their private lives fúcked. Basically its a stage and were watching these people as if its just a show for us.

keefg

my least favourite type of "celebs" are those hideous inbreds that are churned out of the Big Brother house.

They should all be stoned (with bricks - not cannabis) everytime they are out in public.

ntlbell

Beruthiel wrote:

That for me is the scary part, that many mags means lots of women buy this trash.
Why you would waste your free time reading that tripe is beyond me, if you lived three life times you still wouldn't get through all the wonderful books out there.

which you could of put a good dent in reading if you made less than 18k of posts on a BB....each to thier own...