Like many people who read the tabloids, the celebrities’ lives documented (or more accurately, exaggerated or spun around) fascinate and appall me. I have the occasional guilty pleasure of reading gossip columns and tabloid magazines, and envy the women who are my age or younger who are worth millions, even billions of dollars. As you could imagine, I don’t make even that close.
This country has a materialistic, shallow culture. Nowadays people place so much value on education like schools, parents and the PTAs. But are children really going to benefit from four years of college, another three or so for a masters, or two years in a trade school? Ironically the thousands of dollars invested into these institutions and the four or more years spent in the classrooms prove to be almost nothing once you go out and make less than what you owe the colleges. Another irony is that some celebrities – even underage ones — have not seen the inside of a regular classroom reap in millions, even billions.
How can even the talentless celebrities still deepen their pockets and inflate their egos? Even some reality shows shower attention on people whose reasons for getting their own shows are not the best reasons. “Jon and Kate Plus 8”? Okay, it’s commendable that Kate is able to raise eight children (note how I’m not giving props to Jon on his parenting skills), but do they really deserve this much attention? Somehow they do, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about them now. The concept of fame is to basically feed one’s own soul, to remind oneself and the world that he or she exists. Sure, it’s not enough to just be born and have a birth certificate for documentation – no! Exploitation – whether it’s of self or others – is a good thing, as long as it’ll get air time. Why act desperate and obsessive about finding a soul mate behind closed doors? Why not alleviate the loneliness and shun the thought of taking care of oneself by going on “The Bachelor” or the scores of pointless “dating” reality shows? One can show his or her mettle by clawing their way through a dozen other equally self-absorbed rivals to hook up with an equally self-absorbed “soul mate”.
Look at the Heene family — Balloon Boy insanity. According to the tabloids, the father is attention hungry and probably even neglectful; the mother is reportedly submissive to her husband’s whims, and their son – Balloon Boy himself – unwittingly doesn’t mind his manners. When the family appeared on Wolf Blitzer’s show on CNN, the other two Heene children bashfully greeted Wolf, but Falcon said, “Who the hell is Wolf?” Aww, that’s so cute; the boy inadvertently didn’t mind his manners, hence the laughter from Wolf and the Heenes following that snafu. Okay, children have the occasional slip of the tongue, even leading to swearing sometimes. Kids are kids, I understand that. But where is the discretion? Wasn’t Falcon taught the courtesy to greet people properly?
Sour grapes? Maybe so. But so what? I’m entitled to my 15 minutes of fame eventually J