Everyday we are bombarded with images and information concerning the lives of celebrities. It is almost impossible to escape hearing the latest gossip about your favorite (or least favorite) star(s). No one can deny that such gossip drives big business. People are definitely willing to pay for something to talk about. There is also no denying that much of that information comes at a high cost to the celebrity, who at the end of the day is just a person like you and I. Below you will find a link to a very interesting article on the topic. Why are the lives of others so important? Why do we care about celebrities? What does private knowledge about a public person do for us?
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/147950/why_do_we_care_so_much_about_the_lives_pg2.html?cat=
Celebrities are celebrities, because they are famous for something (acting, modeling, singing, etc.)
AntwortenLöschenHowever, why are the lives of celebrities so important to us?
One reason might be the fact that we get to know celebrities in our childhood by listening to music, watching tv, films and commercials. Impression and facination for their voice, body or acted character develop and a kind of what-if-I-would-be-that-dream is formed in our heads. Our whole life is accompanied by them (in newspapers, magazines, internet, tv,..) and they show us how we should live.
Stars are role-models and we want to achieve success as well as they did. Morover it seems that they have everything they want: fame, money, big houses, cars...
These are the things, we all want to achieve in life because they show that we are important, influental and especially successful in what we are doing.
Another important aspect in connection to this is the fact that stars always seem to be happy when we see them on tv and this is another goal we all want to achieve in our life. Probably "happiness“ is even the most important one of all.
So it becomes clear that stars are our idols and because of that we want to live like them. To do so, we have to know how they live their lives and that is the reason why we are so interested in what they are doing.
Furthermore it is very appeasing to see the negative sides of celebrities` life, for example if a couple gets divorced, a star gains a few kilos, another one is accused of taking drugs,...
On the one hand, this shows that celebrities are as human as we are, they are not perfect and make mistakes. This unburdens us of the permanent urge of beeing perfect, which is given through our celebrity-focusing society.
On the other hand, negative banner headlines as the example of taking drugs or other delicts should prevent us from do such stupid things, because the public accusations show the consequences quite plainly.
Celebrities are a kind of entertainment. If we hear a song of a singer we never heard about on the radio before or discover a new actor in a film, we start to search these people on the internet and want to know who they are, what they did before, with whom they are in a relationship and so on.
We even could join thousands of sides, chat rooms and message boards to discuss with alien people about these celebrities and stars are one topic when we meet our friends.
All in all it is important not to focus totally on celebrities life (like a lot of teenager do) than to keep it in moderation, get inspiration from them (e.g. according to fashion or charitable aid ), but to live your own life according to your own criteria.
We care for celebrities, because they seem to be perfect.
AntwortenLöschenPeople idolize them as something untouchable.
Everyone wants to be like them and also lead a "happy" life without worries.
All the more, people feel glad about the flaws, celebrities have. They enjoy gossip about their idols, because that is the only way to be conscious that their own live, personality or physical appearence is not bad either.
Society made celebrities and has to live with its consequences, too.
Many people, especially teenagers adjust their own lifestyle to those of celebrities, due to peer pressure.
This adjustment can lead to low self-confidence.
Apart from negative aspects, celebrities can have positive aspects, too.
If celebrities use their fame in a useful way and realize their resposibility as idols, they can help people to be happy the way they are or encourage them to be critical.
Despite all, we can not change the fact that celebrities are kind of attractive to people.
First of all I agree to the point that everybody grows up with a celebrity as a ideal and thus we get to know the life of some famous people very early.
AntwortenLöschenI remember me collecting pictures and newspaper articles of my "ideal" and I was not the only one who did something like that. I think in childhood children are impressed of their stars and want to be like them. That's also why many children firstly want to become an actor or a singer.
I think, this behaviour doesn't often change. You get older, but I think many people still have an ideal. You maybe do not collect crazy things anymore but you are interested in their lives. How many people did never search for information in "google"? :)
Furthermore, I take the view that for many the lives of celebrities are like a television show: We see what they do, we can buy magazines to read whom they will marry or what they are wearing and we also see when their life breaks down, when they take drugs or something like that.
For children their lives seem to be perfect, but later we recognize that this is not the reality - fortunately.
I think every single behaviour is what we want to see: On the one hand we want to see stars winning a special price, because that certifies the reason why this person is our ideal, but on the other hand the fact, that also famous celebrities can hit a bottom in their life, affects us positively: It shows that nobody is perfect and that life always consists of ups and downs - doesn't matter if you are famous or not.
We are interested in celebrity's lives because we dream of being like them or because of some prove we want to get that in the world a perfect life doesn't exist - neither in germany nor in hollywood !
According to my opinion, people care about celebrities, because this pastime is just entertaining. Celebrities appear in public every day, and for that reason it is obviously that they create some kind of interest for people around them. You can laugh at them, suffer with them or even be happy with them. Mostly people do not care about the fact that celebreties are "normal" people, too. They just see them as an entertainment factor, because everywhere you can read, watch or listen news about these famous people all the day.
AntwortenLöschenTo my mind, celebreties have to get along with these facts when they choose such a kind of life for themselves, as long as people still respect some limits.
Apart from these facts, celebreties also represent a kind of unreachable aim for many people, which is of course quite interesting to think or even dream about. For most of us the kind of life celebreties have is something special we will never achieve. Therefore, at least we want to participate in the life of such people in order to have some "glamour" in our life, too.
Except for these reasons, we often only consider the "glamorous" and "luxurious" facts of being a celebrity. When a newspaper reports about famous people being on drugs or ending up in prison, we never care about these facts as bad as if for example a friend of us would experience those things. We often tend to permit celebrities more than for example ourselves, because they are famous!
As already said, celebrities are the ones we often identify with or we want to be like them. They always look pretty, they are famous, rich... They achieved things that seem to be attractive for everyone of us.
AntwortenLöschenI think the reason why we care about stories of them, and especially about rumours that say things about their mistakes in their private life, problems they have, or other things like that, is that we want to see them fail. We want to see that these celebrities that seem so perfect to us are in fact not better than we are. There may be days when we dream of being as beautiful and popular as the stars, but when we hear stories like that, we can be content that even being famous doesn't prevent you from failure. Additionally, people love rumours, especially if there are no interesing things happening in their own lives. This is why stories about celebrities seem interesting to us, because they give us stuff to talk about. Most of us also love slagging in general- at least sometimes everybody says things like "Oh my god, did you hear...??!!". You often slag of normal people, too. The point is just that everyone in your surrounding will know who you mean when you talk about a famous person, which might not be the case with a friend of yours or any other "normal" person. This might also be a reason why we care about celebrities. They give us topics to talk about and they make us feel superior when they make mistakes - even if it's just for a short while.
As Caro already mentioned, it is about slagging. Psychologists found out that slagging is good for someone's self confidence and it makes people feel better. Stars are good to slag about because everyone knows them, you can easily remember persons and what they did, and mostly - if they did anything wrong - everyone knows about. In fact people in nomal life might get angry that people talk about them, make fun of who they are or what they do. This is something diffrent for stars. They never hear what you exactly say about them, so they are slagging "objects" that never cause any arguments because they never get to know what you told.
AntwortenLöschenFurthermore people need to compare themselves to others, as far as I know this is somehow based on the struggle-of-the-best principle some well known biologist once evaluated. People compare themselves (and they slag to make others look worse than they are - no matter if they are some celebrities or if it is the classmate or the girl next door - just to move themselves a little up in the ranking) to find out about how much "worth" they have "on the market" to find out who is the best.
Well and at least it is a funny way to pass time if you have nothing else to do. Just talking about who-did-what to do something, reading an article about Heidi Klum's new Baby or who is adopting children, who got injailed for driving cars under drug influence needs some time and attention so the time you have to pass passes by much faster.
I think there are two main reasons why we care so much about the life of celebrities.
AntwortenLöschenOn the one hand we care about those celebrities because we want to see the big and powerful stumble and fall. Almost no one cares about a celebrity when there are no scandals about this person. Take Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears for example. We know everything about their life because all they do is produce scandals and one "fauxpas" after the other. No one cares about Johnny Depps or George Clooneys private life other than who they are dating because they just dont screw up as much as our barbies. So i think "Schadenfreude" plays a big role in why we are intrested in the lifes of the "rich and beautiful".
Quote by Alan Shore:
"Shadenfreude. From the German words, Schaden and Freude, damage and joy. It means to take spiteful, malicious delight in the misfortune of others. We used to dismiss this as simply an ugly side of human nature, but it is much much more than that. Recently a Stanford professor actually captured Schadenfreude on a brain scan. It's a physiological medical phenomenon. When we see others fall it sometimes causes a chemical to be released in the dorsal striatum of the brain which actually causes us to feel pleasure."
On the other hand we care about celebrities because there is something hidden in our DNA that makes us want to look up to someone and pay attention to those "alpha-males" or "alpha-females".
Another quoute by Alan Shore:
"A neuro-biologist at Duke University conducted an experiment where he gave a group of
thirsty monkeys a choice of either having their favorite drink, which was some sort of cherry juice
concoction, or of having the opportunity to look at pictures of the dominant, "celebrity" monkey in their
pack. Despite their thirst and the allure of the cherry juice, they chose to look at the pictures. Apparently
monkeys have a part of their brain that specifically responds to the thrill of celebrity. As do we."
Those two quotes are from my favourite tv show but are actually based on true scientific studies.
In conclusion, I think that we care about celebrities because we want to feel better about ourselves seeing them fall and on the other hand we are genetically obsessed with those people that have reached the goals society tells us to achieve.
Firstly I think it’s unavoidable not to be exposed in any way to the lives of celebrities because they are so often linked to the things we like or are interested in, certain music or even products that are advertised by them for example. When hearing for example, a song which you are totally in love with and which is reflective of your own situation, you also want to know more about the singer, about their life story, thus you try to identify with them, to search for what you may have in common. Young people especially are interested in finding out resemblances between themselves and their idols, but often this is not enough for them. So they begin to imitate their behavior and their outward appearance whilst changing or rather suppressing their own personality in exchange for the supposedly better one. They do not appreciate themselves any longer because they are convinced that with their own personality and appearance they won’t achieve the fame and fortune they dream of. So I would to a certain extent agree with the article emphasizing the dangers of celebrity culture and of idolizing celebrities. People with a lack of self-confidence in particular, are endangered by the overemphasis in TV programmes of personalities who seem to look perfect. As they aren’t able to think rationally and objectively about the images shown of them – for example they are not aware of the fact that the images they are seeing are most likely enhanced with makeup or Photoshop - and they forget that they are also ordinary people.
AntwortenLöschenBut on the other side however, I would also agree with my predecessors, that celebrities could also have a positive effect on i.e. teenagers by demonstrating exemplary behavior or by showing that they have defects or problems as well as we have. Sometimes it’s also important to have an example / role-model, especially when you are still young and are not standing firmly in life. Those children who have no real or approachable role model, need some kind of adult person who at least gives them a little orientation in life.
But in my opinion, one should be careful when exposing children to the whole media and even perhaps reflect sometimes oneself as to the extent one depends upon the actions of celebrities, because one might often forget about ones’ own life…
Generally, to me it seems a waste of time, continually pursuing the life of any celebrities and above all I am not even interested in them, if my friends try to talk to me about how, for example, Heidi Klum looked liked on television, I only listen to them without commenting.
Caro Stark:
AntwortenLöschenI think that we are obsessed with celebrities and their problems because we see some of them as idols or maybe even identify with some of them.
Additionally it is always nice stuff to talk about in free time. People are curious and like to discuss other people’s problems. It is attractive, due to the fact, that everyone receives these information and that makes the discussion even more interesting because every person thinks different about the new scandal/gossip or whatever.
Moreover, if you keep yourself up to date about a famous person since you are young, you have background knowledge about him/her and feel attracted by his/her story/problems. So maybe you feel bad, or you are pleased, it depends on the situation.
Referring to Pink, who is pregnant now, ( as it was mentioned last lesson),this draws my attention to her personality because I like her a lot and even went to a concert of hers last year, so I “care” about it and I am interested in that given information.
Certainly you have to be careful that the behavior of your favorite does not influence your life too much, because this can end up like it is said in the article in low-self esteem and depression.
All in all, celebrities are so important for us because we associate with them or we are just interested in talking about the news with other people and by this, get into contact with friends.
I think that celebreties are so important to us, because they are our idols from childhood on. We admire them, due to the fact that they are rich, pretty, always good- looking.
AntwortenLöschenWe assume that they are happy. That is why, we are aming so desperately to be like them.
We look at magazins to see, what the celebraties wear and to check on the newest trends. In my opinion especially teenage girls try to imitate their idols, beliefing they are more accepted and recognized, if they look just like a star.
On the other hand, we love to see stars fail. As described in the articel, we feel a lot better about ourselves, if we recognize that even the celebreties have for example cellulite or other problems in life. Finding errors in other people enhances our self-esteem, wherefore we are slagging all the time not only but especially about celebreties.
To me celebreties are not really important, but I find reading magazins entertaining, if I have to wait in a doctors office for hours.
It is impossible to not get exposed to so called news of celebrities. But i don´t think that they are really important. They don´t influence our lives in any important way. On the contrary, they tell you impossible things like to hang out all day or someting like that. There are only a few celebrities who are aware of their power over some people and use it to help other people. Personally i really don´t care about their lives. If someone makes good music: i´ll listen to it no matter what he/she does in privat.
AntwortenLöschenWhy we care so much about celebrities is a difficult question to answer because everyone does but nobody even knows why a celebrity´s life seems so important to us.
AntwortenLöschenFirst of all, we consider stars as perfect owing to their beauty, success and all their money and thus, we admire them. Possibly some people need celebrites to have something they can believe in and adore them since religion has been becoming less important in our society. But likely there is a lot of envy and if there is something scandalous written in tabloids people love to read about it and can identify with a celebrity due to the fact that one´s „star“ is not perfect any more and faced with ordinary problems like divorce or financial trouble.
A further argument is that it is people´s nature to be interested in other humans business since we are very curious and it is kind of „voyeurism“. These stories being so public enables us to „have a look into a celebrity´s bed room“
Moreover, we cannot escape from the gossip as the mass media has such a strong power and one is confronted with those yellow press stories everyday. However, what would a world without celebrity stories be? To be honest we love caring about other people´s life and chatting about unreachable stars with our friends is more fun☺
First of all, the lives of the celebrities actually aren't important for us.
AntwortenLöschenBut there is a big ,,but'' in this answer.
Fundamentally, people identify themselves with these celebrities because it seemes that they live a perfect life with unlimited money, fun and happiness.
People, particular youths want to be like them and imitate them and cover their whole walls with poster and pursue their lifestyle.
It's like a process of self-discovery and search for personality. Thats the reason why Teenagers predominantly are addressed.
Also an issue of habituation makes the lives of the celebrities ''important''.
Usually people care about their family ,relatives and friends because they belong to this community . But why do we also care about celebrities?
AntwortenLöschenIn my opinion celebrities are so important to us because they entertrain us and there is nobody who does not want to be entertrained.So,
celebrities offer an interesting topic to talk about in everyday life.Who wants to communicate with somebody about economy(eg.financial crisis)? These topics are always boring and depressing. Apart from this,stars seem to be famous, rich,successful and happy,in other words they seem to be perfect which is indeed not the case.Nobody is perfect.Therefore ,especially teenagers who have not formed an identity yet, identify themselves with celebrities.
In conclusion,I would say it is more important to be concerned with ones own life and its problems than the life of others.Of course,we could talk about celebrities,but we shall not only talk about them.Moderation is an important aspect here.
It's almost everything been said about this topic. It's basically that simple: People like talking about other people's lives, whether it's their neighbour or a celebrity from L.A.
AntwortenLöschenThis is one theory.
Furthermore, people like luxury! They imagine the world of these rich and famous people as one where they could have everything they want, where they can be everything they want. The ultimate self-fulfillment! Who would not admire those who managed their lives in such way? But why doesn't it end with admiration? Why do people have to know every single detail about their role models? Just because they are such role models. The more we know about them, the more we can be exactly like them, can't we? I remember when I was younger almost every child wanted to be like some star from the pop-universe. Yes, maybe you could even call it obsessive. But I guess, considering how many children live such a phase in their lives, that it is quite natural and maybe even helps the child to develop an individual personality as soon as it finds out that it is not possible to be a perfect clone of this "star" and that it is furthermore really not desirable.
So much about children but are some adults really still stuck in this kind of phase? I find it hard to imagine that because I honestly don't care much about celebrities' lives. I guess all people have enough own problems and stories to think about and tell not to be occupied too much with those of famous people. Plus once they arrived at a certain age they should have realized that it is neither possible not admirable to live a celebrity's life.
The problem of this celebrity cult is, most of the people care a lot of celebrities to compare celebrities' lives to their own life. Once more, I am not the only one whose life is not as perfect as it most often seems and also celebrities have problems e.g. in love, job or even in health or to have the perfect body :D
AntwortenLöschenSo, my life is not bad, isn't it? I have even similar problems and can identify myself with one of those famous persons, maybe also copy some attitudes or lifestyle.
But, can't you even compare it to gossip which spreads around schoolyards, in circle of friends or even everywhere people come together and see or speak to people who are different?
So, somehow it is normal to all of us. But, we only realise this cult around celebrities because everyone has "access" to the life of famous people. Everyone can express his or her opinion, take pictures or write articles and so on.
Therefore, it is similar to the situation in a class with different cliques - only the community which is interested is bigger.This, furthermore, is closely related to the fact, that these people interact more with our lives than others e.g. acting in movies, writing and performing songs etc. And a again, as it was said before, there is an enviousness or a belonging to these differences or similarities - some may say dream fulfillment or satisfaction with your somehow normal life. But, this is not my opinion, because, I think dream fulfillment is very personal and individual.
I am also very critical about "the perfection" of such celebrities' lives because famous and happy are total different attributes in human life.
Well, as I'm pretty late in commenting and so I see, that nearly everything is already said.
AntwortenLöschenNevertheless, I will tell you, what I personally think about all this celebrity hipe.
I absolutely can not understand why people are so curious about the private life of celbrities.
In my opinion, celebrities are no special humans only because they are famous and so I think that you should rather be interested in the life of your friends and family instead of reading those star magazines.
At least, there are enough interesting, funny or embarassing stories, that happen to everyone around us or to ourselves everyday.
So why are there no magazines about lives of "normal" people?
There are several reasons why celebrities play such an important role for people.
AntwortenLöschenFirst of all, they can be idols for them. Most of them represent a perfect life of richness, beauty, success, glamour etc. Through media they can even be glorified. It makes them superior to us and therefore, “normal” people want to lead a same life as them.
They also identify with those celebrities who had experienced the same as them ( for instance in case of tragic incidents) helping them to deal with their experiences or rather finding a solution to their problems.
The fact that people all over the world know celebrities makes them seem important.
Besides, one gets to know so many private details of celebs that it in a way concerns you (as it would be if you just talked to your own friends)which makes you, if one is really into gossip, desperate to know how their life continues
Anyway, there are as well numerous celebrities who appear in a bad light. Nevertheless, people want to know even more badly about their life. It has different effects on them though.
As they are informed about celebs’ escapades it’s a reason to gossip about them. It makes oneself in a way feel better when criticising other people’s life.
I think interest in celebs mostly comes from some kind of voyeurism that many people have. Sometimes it seems like a car wreck, it's horrible, but you can't look away.
AntwortenLöschenIn fact, everyone has the chance to look for new gossip, and dicuss it. People want to see "perfect" people, who have the same everyday problems like themselves.
On the other hand, celebs want to be talked about. Just no news is bad news. Even bad news is good news, because that way a star can remain in the limelight.
Nevertheless there are some stars, who don't want their private life to be public, i.e. Tom Hanks. A few weeks ago I read an article about him and he said that he has no problem with paparazzis or scandals whatsoever.
He always manages to go shopping or pick up his children from school without anyone bothering him at all.
In conclusion I think both celebs and "ordinary" people are to blame for making celebs' lives more important than it should be.
As Johannes already said, it seems to be a kind of voyeurism.
AntwortenLöschenPeople are so much interested in other peoples lifes, that they want to get to know everything.
They identify with some celebrities and therefore, they want to know about their good and bad moments.
Besides, there are always people, who you do not really like.
If you get to know something about their problems or something like that, you may feel better.
That seems to be a kind of spitefulness.
The other arguments are already mentiones, so I think, that I do not need to repeat them.
The main point just seems to be that people want to get to know everything about celebrities because of identification and a kind of little voyeurism.
wow..these are very good statements. I totally agree with the others. I think , one might see a star as an Idol and that is why he is so interested in a star.. but I also think that you even talk about stars or celebrities whether you like them or not. Magazines, or news, the radio.. there is so much media stuff, which inform us about celebrities so that we cannot avoid some news. I think even those paparazzi pictures which show celebrities without make-up are interesting to people, 'cause they might think ' oh wow, they are presented in such a perfect way, but in reality they are just like you and me'. ;)
AntwortenLöschenThese days, celebrities take a huge part in everyday live. We are accompanied by their stories in early childhood so that we in a way grow up with them. Therefore, it's not surprisingly that we are so interested in their lives because we're accustomed to it.
AntwortenLöschenChildren consider celebrities as idols and also a person you can look up to. They compare themselves to them and even start imitating them. On one hand in can support a childs development but also can lead to a fanatic strive to achieve something impossible and that might result in depression. For example, some young girls want to be as thin as a model and effectively eat so little that they harm themselves.
For elders I think, paying so much attention to someones other live is just a way to distract themselves from their own problems. First we all marvel their acievement but then it seems like 'normal people' wait for stars to fail at something.
I think people shouldn't pay so much attention like they do at the moment. It's okay to follow on a person you like, but it shouldn't be the only purpose in life and people should be able to talk about other things. (:
Personally, I'm rarely interested in the life of someone else, even it's a star or the singer of my new favourite song or something.
Well first of all I can't really answer to the question, because I was never really interested in such stories or in people that doesn't affect me.
AntwortenLöschenWhat I really believe, is that "stars & stories" bother us when these stories are about our role models. I was always interested in news about my favorite icehockeyplayer or soccerplayer, but I really can't comprehend why people read magazines and articles about human beings if there is actually no interest in the people they are reading about.
Celebrities are famouse people they did something we like or dislike but we have heard about it. So why do we like to hear gossip or like to talk about them?
AntwortenLöschenMaybe it is just interesting to listen to other people´s storys because they make our own life seem so much better. Or maybe it is because they are more interesting then the real life that you are live in. An other reason might be that the people care about their star and the storys of them.
But I guess the reason why we all read the gossip in the magazines is because it is interesting to see what the famous people do and what they don´t do. If they wear a dress and all the magazine write that that dress is ugly and every comment of the designers is bad than you know that you don´t want to wear something like that.
But another factor is porbably that people always gossip about someone about he neigbor or a friend or someone else. The magazines, papers and the TV show just make it so easy to talk about the celebrities because that is what they show us all the time. So know the paople have the opportunity to take the information that they are given and gossip about it.
If they talk about the stars and their problems then the people don´t have to think about what is going wrong in their own life´s and it makes it easy to forget their problems.
On the one hand people watch what the Tv shows them. If it is the life of the celebrities or show about a farmer who wants to find his real love. On the other hand Tv show what people watch and want to see and as long as we all keep on watching stars and their stories then that is what we get to see in the media.