Celebrity Opinions: Just As Worthless as Everyone Else's
At the risk of jumping on the enormous counterculture cliche acute; bandwagon of expressing disdain for our country's obsession with the personal lives of celebrities, I have to say that I still don't understand the ridiculous interest that people have in these overpaid, over medicated, endlessly interchangeable faces.
It's not to say that celebrities are without their talents-some are gifted athletes, and some are exceptional actors or musicians. But most of the well known are blown out of proportion and distorted until their real occupation becomes a trivial piece of who they are.
The worst thing about them is that they can come from nowhere and are only famous because we are told they are. Let's say the charming faces of a few adolescents with no particular talents are given instruments and they pretend to play, or play poorly. The music is probably a generic track about the opposite sex in which the poor person is either tired of their mate or really wants them back. The "musicians" are all outfitted with a look that is perfectly in fashion and sent to parade themselves on an arena tour leaving them to become novelties by the time their voices drop.
There will be a cute one, a tough one, a sensitive one who is sometimes also the cute one, and a weird older one who hangs around like the awkward senior with no real friends who is being used by these younger ones because he has a car. Their faces will be placed on everything from lunchboxes to t-shirts, while the tween demographic watches them on television, because all of a sudden they can act too.
After a marketing campaign, that would rival that of most soft drinks, they become the new teenage heartthrobs. This is made easy because the company who is sponsoring this band not only owns a television channel, but a record label, and an insane amount of public information outlets. Let's call this company "Misney."
Fast forward a few years, one of them is probably in rehab, another has some kind of a career that remains in the public eye, and the rest are probably involved in an array of DUI(s), divorce, and paternity scandals. Now the whole world is laughing as the mighty have fallen and they grab a copy of the story at the check out line and begin to follow the story more than they do the affairs of their own community.
It makes good sense though, fresh faced actors marrying super models, and then divorcing them for the leading lady in their last feature film. People care about these things because they all involve a familiar countenance that they have seen in movies television and magazines. They can recognize the people involved, and the common problems that those people have are made public knowledge because there is some kind of false kinship felt by the viewer or the reader, and it sells.
Unfortunately, the public feels like celebrities' problems are important, so naturally this means that their opinions become important too. If Leonardo DiCaprio wants to push a presidential candidate or green energy, the people will listen. The same is true when everyone decides that Africa is finally important.
Many well-known people plaster their faces into forty seconds commercials to be blasted during the Super Bowl encouraging donations to an aid organization. Yes, some of the things that celebrities push for are important causes and the awareness they bring is irreplaceable. But the fact that people need them to be their flagship for becoming actively involved in matters of dire necessity around the world is ridiculous. It is almost like the word of a two bit director is worth more than all of the experts any given field has to offer. The admiration and overzealous interest in celebrities needs to stop. Respect these celebrities for the accomplished people they are, but don't look to them to solve the world's problems, and don't make the mistake of watching their lives unfold like it is the evening news, when they are clearly average people.