Why Nobody Wants To Be A Celebrity

I'm ashamed to admit it, but there was a time when searching for the latest celebrity news on the Internet was my favourite part of the day. The Internet was supposed to be a platform for the communication of the greatest human ideas and ideals. But despite the Internet's fine beginnings, I soon found myself checking up on who was about to suffer a catastrophic split or hilarious rehab episode. And why were they having such a bad time of it? Because I and everyone around me was waiting patiently at the end of an internet pipeline for it to happen.

It's part of a wider trend after all: we can no longer stomach the serious news subjects, and we don't consider 'good' news as news at all. When it comes to celebrity news, the worse the news the better. Such is our obsession that multiple newspapers in the UK can call Danielle Lloyd a 'Celebrity Big Brother star' without a hint of irony. People who should be in applying for special bad credit credit cards with the rest of us are in the spotlight because they've appeared on a show that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why are we seemingly unfazed by the fact that people are doing this? I know I'd rather max out my Vanquis Credit Card account than become a celebrity. Nobody envies celebrities anymore.

Britney Spears is back, offering us a timely reminder of the extremes of celebrity meltdown. The very public breakdowns she suffered from 2007 through 2009 were highlights of the celebrity circus. With this, a new age of Celebrity cattle prodding was born. Newspapers and websites characterise our interest in her breakdowns as 'widespread concern'. If we're honest, it's 'schadenfreude'. Our lives being what they are, we tend to watch out for the moment when those more successful than us suffer, because it makes us feel a lot better about ourselves. But do we even feel that celebrities are in a higher position than us anymore? I doubt it. If we use the word 'celebrity' to describe our Danielle Lloyds and Nicole Polizzis, hasn't it really lost all meaning?. I'd rather take Bad credit advice from Perez Hilton than listen to any more of his non-celebrity non-bashings. And that's a guy who was bankrupt before he found out that he can make people listen to him just by being vapidly sneering at people he's no better than.