Author: Sarah Mofford
Thanks to the paparazzi we have 24/7 coverage of celebrities’ lives. The good, the bad and the crotch shots. It’s as if our whole culture runs on the lives and deaths of celebrities. Take, for example, Sept. 14, when everyone was talking about Kanye West and his leaping onstage at the VMAs to steal Taylor Swift’s moment of glory. Having little to talk about in news besides celebrity gossip has become the new wave for our generation. We seem to care more about celebrity gossip than anything that would affect our lives significantly. If we don’t look outside the Hollywood hills, we may find ourselves in a disastrous situation.
This may seem like an overstatement. After all, reading People magazine here or there isn’t going to hurt. There is a comfort in the sedated thought process that accompanies contemplating gossip. But it’s gotten so bad that in July 2005, Associate Content reported that “celebrity worship syndrome” had become an official psychological disorder. Sufferers, according to a CBS news story, are obsessed with celebrities to the extent that their self-esteem diminishes, and celebrity worship becomes a “substitution for real life,” leading the sufferer to disconnect from his or her own life. Psychologists Lynn McCutcheon and James Houran took 600 subjects and gauged their celebrity fascination levels.
According to Associated Content, “They found ten percent, or 60 individuals, took the celeb watching to another level; believing that they had what McCutcheon and Houran described as a ‘special bond’ with the celebrity.”
Even those who follow gossip for entertainment reflect a special bond in the way they talk about celebrities. After the VMAs, Facebook statuses across the country talked about Taylor Swift and Kanye West as if they were personal friends. The Associated Content report says that some statistics show as much as “a third of the world’s population is afflicted by celebrity worship syndrome.”
It’s not unreasonable to think of the VMAs incident as just a small indicator of our generation’s psychological disorder.
Lack of moderation is seen in the fact that there are shows dedicated to celebrities including TMZ and a numerous list of countdowns on VH1. Worse still is the way that news stations have joined in. When Michael Jackson died, the news talked about almost nothing else for three weeks. Important news ran across the bottom of the screen in tiny print. I appreciate Michael Jackson and his contributions to society and music, but three weeks is absurd. As news channels toured Neverland, America was still without health care reform and still without an approved California State Budget, plus nine British embassy employees were kidnapped.
I understand the lure of celebrity gossip. Who broke up with whom can be great small talk. But what happened to actual news? Did you know that a lawsuit has been filed against Facebook saying that it violates privacy by giving information to third parties? How about the fact that numerous deaths at Louisiana’s Memorial Hospital after Hurricane Katrina are back in the spotlight after a New York Times article interviewed two doctors who admitted to administering morphine and other drugs, knowing the patients would die? When President Obama said that illegal immigrants would not be covered under the health insurance reform program proposed by the Democrats, a South Carolina representative yelled “You lie.” The Taliban threatened to cut off the finger of anyone who voted in the past election in Afghanistan. Three people lost fingers. And yet, I bet you know that President Obama called Kanye West a jackass for his behavior at the VMAs. I’m worried, and not because our reported enemies are obtaining weapons and refusing to discuss nuclear truces. I’m worried because instead we talk about K-fed getting fat.
I think it’s easier to pay attention to celebrities who we are taught to idolize. They sit on a pedestal and we like to remind ourselves they are just like us. But the lives of celebrities really don’t affect us. It’s hard to acknowledge that the world is torn from imperialism and pollution, but ignorance is not bliss. No matter how long you ignore it, North Korea, global warming and the national debt are not going to get better unless we are informed. For every bit of celebrity gossip heard, there should be something important heard, like efforts to stop genocide in Darfur. Don’t worry, Taylor is a big kid, she’ll survive without us.
Sarah Mofford is an Undeclared sophomore. She can be reached at smofford@oxy.edu.
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