Whenever I go to the airport, I have a routine. I check in and go through security (this is all a given) and then I find my gate so I know where it is. I go get something to eat at whatever fast-food place or restaurant that I can find. Then, I head to the nearest newsstand/ magazine store to pick up 2 or 3 magazines for the plane ride. Now you are probably thinking what is so special about my routine? And you are right, nothing really, except for the fact that I always buy at least one fashion magazine and one tabloid/gossip magazine. And you are probably thinking again, what is so special about that? And the answer is the fact that I ALWAYS buy one fashion magazine and one tabloid proves how obsessed our culture is with celebrities and their lives.
Today actors/actresses, athletes, politicians and socialites are our society’s version of royalty. We place them all on a pedestal, so when they make one mistake everyone scrutinizes them. For example, Britney Spears has been having a rough time this year. After her divorce from Kevin Federline, which had already hurt her career, she began going out with Paris Hilton and having a good time. But the media spun it that she was becoming too wild and unfit to be a mother. Then, last weekend she shaved all her hair off and is now bald. Again, she was the top story on numerous news channels, in newspapers and magazines. When Britney Spears first reached celebrity status, she was viewed as an innocent, good girl, but over the years she has shattered this image and as of right now it seems like she will never fully recover this image.
These gossip magazines and websites that follow the lives of rich and famous build the celebrities up only to tear them down, and our society loves this. I think the reason we buy these magazines and visit these websites is because we all feel better about ourselves when bad things happen to other people and do not happen to us. It gives us the reassurance that our lives are going better than we thought because people are doing worse. But recently, the obsession with celebrities has been taken to the extreme. On news channels like CNN, the breaking news and top stories are centered around celebrities, instead of focusing on world news that is important to the wellbeing of our country. Britney Spears’ baldhead has no real impact on my life even though this story overshadows national news. I think our country needs to start focusing on the important issues impacting our nation instead of what celebrity hit their assistant with a cell phone.
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Two years ago, the common reading for the freshman class at SMU was called Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman. It's not a recent book--published first back in the 1980's, but it's a relevant one today because Postman argued that our democracy would go into decline if Americans just wanted entertainment all the time, and not serious news and knowledge. You are so right that celebrities are our royalty, and they have become our obsession. A lot of what you say in this post connects with Csikzsentmihalyi too. We choose the easy stuff that just wastes our time, but I have to admit an airplane is not where I do much serious reading either. I don't think there is enough oxygen for my brain to function properly. Still fashion mags have more culture and value than celeb gossip.
I like your idea here. I agree that we pay more attention to our celebrities' lives rather than important world issues. It is quite sad to think how much more a large amount of people know about celebrities than the leaders of our country. It makes us seem superficial. I also agree that people watch and read bad things happening to others in order to feel better about themselves. Why do we shun the real issues for the superficial ones today?
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