Why are people so star struck?

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Why are people so star struck? The Royal wedding, Jennifer Aniston, Halle, Beyonce and Jay Z, Nicki Minaj, Justin Bieber, The Kardashians etc.? Some of them are talented, but when is enough, enough? Just wondering, also, do you think our generation is the most star struck of them all?

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@motherof4,

I don't really get star-struckness either but honestly I can't even imagine why anyone would want to be famous so I'm a bit suspicious of celebrity anyway.

I don't think today's generation is any more star struck than past generations but there does seem to be a lot more ways to become famous these days so maybe that has something to do with it.

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@motherof4,

I am star struck because I believe that stars have happier lives than I have. I also envy their ability to memorize their lines in whatever they perform in.

And, as far as the Royals go, I envy them for their being royalty. They get to live in castles or palaces, and have very polite help.

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@motherof4,

It might be a different form of escapism. The only difference is that the people the spectator is following is a real life person rather then a fictional character.

Also there is a bit of schadenfreude:

Quote:

scha·den·freu·de
[shahd-n-froi-duh]
–noun
satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.

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People make people in their own view into stars. This seems elementary.
This can amp up, especially with personal representation, into fame and fortune.
Industries have ramped up about that fame and fortune.
The big problemo is - that people take all these folks as iconic. Doing that is beginning to seem to me a human mode.
Sometimes it seems to me that all the world wants to be someone else.
Sort of religious.

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@motherof4,

You ask "Why are people so star struck?" It's mainly because most of them have such dismal lives of their own. So they try live vicariously the lives of the rich and famous.

You ask, "Do you think our generation is the most star struck of them all?" Heck, no! In the 1920s, when silent screen idol Rudolph Valentino died young, women were literally having nervouse breakdowns at his gravesite. They'd never met the man. When the Beatles first came to the US, teen-age girls by the thousands and tens of thousands (and some boys and older people, too) were causing traffic jams in an effort to see them. This has been going on for a long time and, if anything, it's gotten somewhat tamer now.

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I can understand fans being star struck when the star in question is unusually talented or at least attractive. But I blame the media for the more recent phenomenon of non-stars becoming famous for no reason other than having good publicists. Paris Hilton, Snookie and other Jersey people I can't name, various Desperate Housewives and such. I'll be glad when their collective 15 minutes have played out.

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@mac11,

I've no clue myself, but there seems to be a river of the chosen fostered by publicity people, publicity websites including major newspapers, and the wait for the selected's failings on Huffpo. Factory feeding, including corn kernals.

I'm thinking of it all as Blatz, but I think that was the name of an old beer.

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@Lustig Andrei,

I totally agree with you LA. To make the statement that there is far more celebrity gawking now then ever, the person needs to take off his or her rose-colored glasses off when trying to comparing the past with the present.

The only difference between the past and the present of celebrity news is the presence of the internet, social networks, and the 24 hour news networks which are different and more pervasive tools for the paparazzi, the celebrity gossip 'analysts', and the consumers of this celebrity tripe/news.

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@motherof4,

motherof4 wrote:

Why are people so star struck? The Royal wedding, Jennifer Aniston, Halle, Beyonce and Jay Z, Nicki Minaj, Justin Bieber, The Kardashians etc.? Some of them are talented, but when is enough, enough? Just wondering, also, do you think our generation is the most star struck of them all?

Beyonce and Justin Beiber are the only ones that even sound familiar, and I can't match the names with faces. On a similar list in 1955, I could have probably have gotten 100%.

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@ossobuco,

If any of you mention Lindsay Lohan to me one more time, one more time, one more time, I will kill you.
Perhaps with grapefruit sorbet, but never mind the means.

She has violated my space, she got a place in the renorenorenovated venice.

I had a gallery in those blocks - for a short bit - the blocks that could never get forward, for many years, many decades, across from Rose's. A place would come, a place would go. Our place had seven broken windows when we moved in. Gang very near by. Now the area is the cream of anointed interest. So funny to me. I did take a photo panorama once, of the entire street, but not so interesting to me later, probably in the eighties.

There was a woman I read about later that also rented our space before us, Barbara Dimonstein or similar name. I think she was known in the art world, well regarded.

Stars... make your own.

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@tsarstepan,

Go ahead, tell me all you know about LA. I await the paragraph.

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@ossobuco,

I see I sound hostile but you know I am not, Tsar. LA is not just media cush.

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@ossobuco,

People care about my Venice in the Seventies thread. Mostly musicians connect on that thread - but we just listened to the Canaligators at the Come Back Inn, ourselves, those seven windows open. The thread has survived as a connector.

Lots of musicians played there. http://able2know.org/topic/39461-1

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One of my son's classmates at primary school was the daughter of David Beckham's landlady in Manchester (when he was a United star). On the single occasion that he picked her up, he made the mistake of walking into the classroom before the bell. The teacher, being completely indifferent to his identity, threw him out ! ( to gasps of disbelief from the kids).

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@motherof4,

Actually, I'm not remotely, not the slightest bit star struck.
And I get pretty crapped off with non-stories of these "celebrities" encroaching more & more on the pages of our daily newspapers.
I couldn't care less what Posh & David Beckham will call their new baby.
Are there actually people who do care?

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@ossobuco,

I was typing on my iTouch when I wrote that post. Couldn't fall asleep but didn't want to turn on my laptop for a few quick posts. LA is Lustig Andrei's (AKA Merry Andrews) initials and I didn't want to make a typo at such a late hour so I took the lazy way out with the initials.

These days, my only experience with the city of LA is the hit or miss version of Law and Order: LA. Neither Lustig Andrei or this version of Law and Order are related to the best of my knowledge. Razz

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I came across this today and it seemed relevant to this thread...

Quote:

Fame is the No. 1 value emphasized by television shows popular with 9- to 11-year-olds, a dramatic change over the past 10 years, UCLA psychologists report in a new study.

On a list of 16 values, fame jumped from the 15th spot, where it was in both 1987 and 1997, to the first spot in 2007. From 1997 to 2007, benevolence (being kind and helping others) fell from second to 13th, and tradition dropped from fourth to 15th.

<snip>

The top five values in 2007 were fame, achievement, popularity, image and financial success. In 1997, the top five were community feeling, benevolence (being kind and helping others), image, tradition and self-acceptance. In 2007, benevolence dropped to the 12th spot and community feeling fell to 11th. Financial success went from 12th in 1967 and 1997 to fifth in 2007.

The two least emphasized values in 2007 were spiritualism (16th) and tradition (15th); tradition had been ranked fourth in 1997.

<snip>

"The biggest change occurred from 1997 to 2007, when YouTube, Facebook and Twitter exploded in popularity," Uhls said. "Their growth parallels the rise in narcissism and the drop in empathy among college students in the United States, as other research has shown. We don't think this is a coincidence. Changes we have seen in narcissism and empathy are being reflected on television. In the past, children had their home, community and school; now they have thousands of 'friends' who look at their photos and their posts and comment on them. The growth of social media gives children access to an audience beyond the school grounds."

Read all about it: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/popular-tv-shows-teach-children-210119.aspx

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We go about our jobs with only a few people observing us. Celebrities have billions of people watching them do their job.

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@wandeljw,

Quote:

We go about our jobs with only a few people observing us.

Unless you're unlucky enough to bungle something most spectacularly under the coincidental eye of a cell phone camera at your job that leads you to some kind of highly watched Youtube meme.

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Why are people so star struck?

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