Today more than ever, society has become especially celebrity obsessed and materialistic. Pop culture icons, like the Kardashians, are practically worshipped for doing nothing but “entertaining” us, and when we roll our eyes at each new television spin-off they get, we quickly forget that we are the people putting money in their pockets.
"Fake news" is a term being thrown around a lot these days. Headlines have become something of little value. On a daily basis, my phone sends me news alerts about what’s happening locally, nationally, and globally. The majority of these alerts, however, are about celebrity love lives and drama, or pictures of them doing something so out of the ordinary and spectacular, such as buying groceries in sweatpants and a cap. Wow! What a concept!
We quickly forget that they are also human.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m a complete sucker for celeb baby news and such, but that’s what we have E! News for. News outlets are notorious on forms of social media, like snapchat for example, for only posting stories about celeb’s trips out to the store or the gym, with absolutely no value to them at all. Daily Mail is probably the worst offender, and on their website, has a specific tab to get all the latest L.A. gossip, despite the fact that they’re a tabloid and media outlet based out of the U.K. Quite honestly, I’m getting very tired of it.
People are fighting in wars, defending our freedom right now, others, saving lives in an operating room, and so on. Knowing that Kim K is arriving at the gym makeup free is not going to affect my daily living. It’s pitiful to me that news outlets feel as though they have nothing more important to report than the mundane followings of celebrities. The tabloids are very much in control.
Honestly, as much as this is the media’s fault for constantly putting this in front of our faces, they’re only reacting to demand from the public. It’s our priorities as a society that drive the trends and the media, and right now, they’re pretty distorted. We’ve tricked ourselves into believing that these people are so above us, so unreachable and divine, that the only way we can feel immersed in their life is through following their every move.
We worship people more than their work, sometimes because of their work, but nonetheless, people who are just living their lives. They’re busy doing this while we are too busy stumbling through ours, focused on how they’re living their own. Sometimes, this infatuation forces people into missing the very people living in their own worlds, right in front of them.
Don’t get me wrong— like I said, I love a daily dose of E! News, but that doesn’t drive my daily living. I like to be involved and up to date on my pop culture, but not consumed by it. Society needs to learn to turn the infatuation into appreciation.
Life is a precious thing and people are doing big things everyday, momentous things, striving to make our world a better place. Reality television stars and the Kim Kardashians of the world, on the other hand, are living their lives for themselves. Live your life while they live theirs, without having to have your nose caught up in their mundane headlines every hour.
