Celebrity sucks ask Paris Hilton

CELEBRITY PEDESTALS
I awoke this morning to a truly pleasurable sight; it was Paris Hilton returning to jail only this time she was handcuffed and in tears. I was too ecstatic to wonder why I was gripped by shadenfreude but I consoled myself that I was with the majority of the populace in delighting in this airheads misfortune. Call me a cynic but this was good news; at last the rich and powerful were being treated equally, or were they? The jury was split between those who said that Ms. Hilton was being made an example while others swore she that she got off lightly.
The chickens have come home to roost for Paris; a dull and vacuous celebrity for a dull and vacuous age. It is a shame that we are even talking about her and this just underlines the hysteria that has gripped us. CNN switched from their usual fare of Baghdad suicide bombing and G8 summit reports to give us minute to minute coverage of the press camped outside her house. It was nice to see they had their priorities sorted and that they wouldn’t let pointless tragedy get in the way of a real scoop.
Paris is taking the flak for a whole generation of pointless celebrities that are just famous for being famous. The main criticism is their lack of talent but I would venture that their lack of talent is what makes them so appealing. Talent can be limiting in the sense that you could be famous for playing good music or making good movies but when the movies and the records start to flop then you are out on your ear; however if you can be famous for not being talented than you are not restricted. Paris is talented at being Paris, the day she stops being a spoilt little rich girl is the day she will be irrelevant.
There used to be time when you could for famous for something, now even the lines of fame and infamy are so blurred that celebrity and notoriety are one and the same. It was Herodetus or Thucydides who said “there are three types of men, those who are born great, those who achieve greatness and those who have greatness thrust upon them.” Which category does Paris fall into? She was born into great wealth as an heiress to a multi-billion dollar empire, she has arguably achieved some kind of greatness by getting a top-rated reality she and trust me it is hard work to maintain such a constant profile. Lastly she has had all the aspirations of celebrity wannabees thrust upon her and now she is stuck in the ivory tower of her own creation, unable to have the minimum privacy to even have a minutes clarity to clear her head.
This is not a new phenomenon though we may perceive as such, going back to the 19th century with Lord Byron and Oscar Wilde had their whole lives talked about endlessly. Moving into the 20th century; stars of Hollywood had their lives splashed on tabloids, leading the major studios to take over the lives of their stars and create artificial lives for their stars to protect them from overexposure. Our base needs have not changed but we have been desensitized by years of endless exposure. The song goes “video killed the radio star” the same goes for this generation, “internet killed the TV star”. The rise of the new multi-media celebrity who bares all is a new breed that has taken over the waves. Fame is the drug of choice for our generation, it can fulfil all our inadequacies for a while at least.
New and modern media is driven by two factors, the fact that we have multiple platforms that allows 24-hr coverage and the equipment has shrunk in size that we enter places that were previously inaccessible places open to view. What function does this serve? Watching a celebrity is like watching paint dry and eventually they have to contrive situation to make it watchable; this was the case with “A simple Life” and the ‘poor little rich girl’ was born. The is no way of talking about this without mentioning big-brother.
Television now thinks it is REALITY; you aren’t someone unless you are on TV. The show was recently under threat because of the recent ‘Shilpa fiasco’ so they went full circle. My friends and I were betting what the composition of the inhabitants would be. “A least 3 gays, 1 black, a posh person, a working class hero and least a couple freaks to lighten up the mood. But the surprised us all by picking their core audience; mindless young women seeking celebrity. People used to have to wait till they left the house before they could become celebrities now it is instant fame. Do we all feel so unloved? The sad fact is that I would a bit of the celebrity lifestyle myself; who wouldn’t? money for nothing, a blank canvass for society to project their feeling on. But that would be hell, I would lose focus on who I am and would wind up on several drugs and violating my probation with the world watching.