Being famous

[ladyofastolat]

A few years ago, apparently, when you asked children what they wanted to do when they grew up, you would get a range of answers: spaceman, train driver, ballet dancer, teacher, doctor etc. Now the most common answer is simply, "to be famous."

But why? Why? Why would anyone want to be a celebrity? I think it looks like an awful life. You just get no privacy at all. Venture outside looking less than perfect, and you'll be all over the celebrity magazines with your "bad hair day", or else they'll start speculating that you're on drugs/drunk/pregnant/got an eating disorder. Yes, you get lots of money, but you get torn to pieces if you don't spend it. Wear the same dress twice, and the celebrity magazines will mock you mercilessly. And, of course, people who seek fame for fame's sake must be permanently terrified that they're going to lose it all.

By the way, if I had been asked this question when young, I would have come up with a range of answers:
At 5: A circus ring-master
At 8: I wanted to write and illustrate my own children's books
At 10: A concert pianist
At 11: A meteorologist
At 13: An astronomer
At 14: I briefly toyed with the idea of being a librarian…
At 15: An archaeologist. But then I went on a dig, and it was rather boring, and I got sunburnt.

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

But kids don't see the downside.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Not just children. Presumably all the teenagers and grown-ups who flock to get onto reality TV shows actually think that it's a good thing to be famous. It probably is, to people who are made that way. I'm just naturally an introvert, and, to me, it sounds awful.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

I agree with you fame is awful, but the flurry of reality tv shows and the swathes of forest turned into gossip/celebrity magazines (sometimes wrapped around tv listing details) show that modern life is obviousy so crap that we're all meant to be hiding from it by being incredibly vacuous,incredibly nosey,incredibly interested, incredibly f-ing small minded about being rich and famous because that's what the media tell us is really important.

I still don't understand why this is so, perhaps at some point someone in Palestine will find an ancient scroll that helps us realise that this is similar to how the Romans fell into decadence.

Frankly I think anyone willing to go on anything like BigBrother should be considered as signing away their rights under the mental health acts and we can then put them to profitable use weaving baskets for sale to tourists who come to visit Britain plc (genteely poor since the 1970s).

I utterly fail to understand how journalists etc can mock tolkien, other fannish fans or people with hobbies when there are all the losers out there who watch BB etc.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I think there has always been a fascination with celebrity, but now there are just so many more ways for us to hear about these people. It's not just an occasional newsreel in the cinemas, showing people glimpses of the current big-name actors, or famous socialites; it's 24 hour TV, internet, text message updates etc. It's got ridiculously out of proportion. And people can be foul-mouthed, stupid, rude, bigoted and thoroughly nasty... and still become celebrities. In the past, celebrities could fall from grace if they behaved badly. Now the bad behaviour is being rewarded with fame, so impressionable teenagers copy this sort of behaviour.

Though I don't have problems with people who watch Big Brother. I admit to watching quite a lot of the first series myself. Back then, it was more or less normal people, and it was interesting to see how people interacted in the circumstances.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

But I was talking not of the viewers (who are students of anthropolgy/psychology, gossips, just plain intrigued by the concept, voyeurs and theose looking for some escape as stated above) but of the people who want to go on it. The celebs get asked and are offered money, or money to a charity, but apart from the 'winner' what do the ordinary bods get? Some time on TV looking like a wally, or being ordered to act like a wally, or being verbally bullied, before being 'voted off' by people who don't even know them - all of which is arranged by a tv company, and we know how manipluative they are.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

The partner of someone at work has applied four times, and once very nearly got on. My colleague really can't understand why he wants to do it, though.

Back at the time of the first series, before it became huge, I can see why the idea might have been attractive. It could be quite an interesting experience (for an extrovert person) to be thrown in with strangers, and see what happened. Nowadays, though, when everyone in the house always seems to be become a hate figure outside it, and most people get booed when leaving it, I don't understand why people would want to do it. I suppose that, to those people, the allure of fame is so great that it outweighs any humiliation.

[evilmissbecky.livejournal.com]

I wanted to be a teacher nearly all my life, except for a brief phase when I was young when I wanted to be a veterinarian.

Why would anyone want to be a celebrity? I think it looks like an awful life.

I agree. I would never want to do that.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I feel particularly sorry for actors. I'm sure some actors go into acting purely as a way to get famous, but I'm sure others do it because they really feel the burning vocation to act. Sometimes they seem to get famous almost by accident - by appearing in a low-budget film that ends up huge. Suddenly they're celebrities without really meaning to.

Many celebrities presumably want that sort of life-style, though. They might moan about the lack of privacy, but then they do everything possible to push themselves into the lime-light.

[tovaglia.livejournal.com]

I never really knew what I wanted to do when I grew up, mainly because I couldn't imagine being an adult and being myself at the same time.

Kids don't ever genuinely think they really are going to grow up, so they just say whatever appears to get most approval from their parents. Presumably their parents would quite like them to be celebrities when they grow up since then they will all be rich and nobody in the family will have to worry about money ever again?

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Maybe. Though it's not just children, but older teenagers, too. I read that teachers are finding it really hard to motivate teenagers to study in one particular school that spawned one rather famous reality TV celebrity. "Study hard and get good grades in your GCSEs, because you need them in order to get a good job," say the teachers, but the teenagers just point at that famous ex-pupil, and say, "She didn't study, and look where she is now."

[yellowrocket.livejournal.com]

My two want to be a fireman and a train driver :-)
Me? I wanted to be a space pirate...

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

The other half came up with a rather nifty definition. A celebrity is only famous for being in the gossip magazines. A star would be famous even if they did not exist.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Good definition. Certainly I've never even heard of many of the so-called celebrities nowadays, and I never read gossip magazines (though I do like to scan the front covers of them in newsagents, out of passing curiosity about popular culture.)