Have you ever realized that the “sexiest man of the year” is really just another way to say, “the actor who had a hit movie/tv show this year who we think would probably look very good on our cover?” Sexy a proxy for success and popularity. I think living in Hollywood would be akin to living in a world that votes for prom queen every single day.
Anyways…
Though the title might not imply it, I made it a goal to stop caring about celebrity gossip and feel like I have made tremendous strides in that regard. I’ve stopped buying the magazines (actually, I’ve worked to kick mags all together and spend my reading time with books and things that possess a degree of intelligence/meaning), stopped watching the what’s-happening-today-in-Hollywood shows, and (not without some degree of internal strife) have stopped following the E! fashion police online.
Results: all in all, I’m very happy with this. I like that I’m spending my time elsewhere, and I am EXTRAORDINARILY pleased that I starting kicking the habit before all this Anna Nicole Smith nonsense. The absurdity of that scenario really reaffirmed to me that there should be no reason to care about this stuff.
However, I’m still wondering: at what point does it become “bad” to possess all this information about people I don’t know? One one hand, the stories disseminated by the media is 99% useless crap. I know this and I realize that there really is no need to know about Britney’s daily debacles, as chronicled by ridiculous photographers. But on the other hand, is it okay for me to know that Angelina Jolie adopted another child? It still falls in the same overall genre, but the quality of the information seems much more useful. So the ultimate question: can any celebrity gossip actually be justified as “worth knowing?”
Any opinions as to how much information is “okay” information? And any ideas as to how to get the (relatively) useful information while leaving the crap behind?
I’ve been trying to do the same thing – and succeeding, for the most part, though I’m having a little difficulty kicking the Go Fug Yourself habit.
I do think some of it is… I was going to say “worthwhile” but maybe “not completely useless” works better. For the most part, I find that just watching the “real” news headlines works just fine: I still know that Anna Nicole Smith died, or that Angelina Jolie adopted again, I’m still pop-culturally literate, but I don’t need to know the details. I can still carry on a conversation about Angelina, and I know enough to stay far away from any conversations about Anna Nicole.
One thing I find that does help, when it comes to following the celebrities I actually care about (and there are, admittedly, a few), is something like Google News. I’ve set up a search for… whoever… it is and plugged the RSS into my feedreader. I can scan the headlines, skip the obvious tabloid crap, and if something interesting happens, or if a real article appears, I can follow up.
I honestly don’t think any of it is worthwhile. These people become more and more famous for simply being, well, famous.