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Scroll through US Weekly or Star and you might not recognize the names and faces of many of those pictured.
Sure, there are movie stars, models, and well-known TV personalities populating the pages of these and other tabloids and glossies. But, the media's coverage of celebrities is rarely limited to big names and A-listers. Publications have been overrun in recent years by a new breed of "stars" who seem to have popped up on TVs and in magazines everywhere.
"They" are the Faux-Lebrities. And their ranks continue to swell--with absolutely no end in sight.
How do you know if you've spotted one or more of these increasingly ubiquitous individuals? Just pick up a magazine, turn on the TV, or trawl the web. If you find yourself wondering, "Who is SHE?" "What exactly does he do?" or "Why am I reading about this person?" Odds are you've just become acquainted with a Faux-Lebrity--and right in your very own living room.
Why have their legions grown so fast and so furiously? One obvious answer: ours is a culture that values fame and fortune above educational pursuits or philanthropic endeavors. Getting noticed and recognized has become, for many, the penultimate achievement. And those who desire fame will do whatever it takes to grab their elusive fifteen minutes, even getting photographed without underpants, or tweeting intimate details of last night's sexual romp.
And it seems that the more they tweet, the more others watch and read.
Now that we know how these attention seekers land in magazines and on TV, a more interesting question becomes: why do we continue to watch people who crave celebrity, fame, and attention so much, they will broadcast their lowest lows and make their most abject humiliations public--just to get noticed?
What hold do these faux-lebrities have over us, anyway?
In psychological terms, watching people slip up and falter, and staring as they proudly display the dirtiest of public laundry, serves to prop us up. We compare ourselves to others--and in so doing, we often come up feeling like we've won a competition. When individuals compare themselves to and feel elevated by the hard luck or bad times of others, they are, according to psychologists, engaging in a process known as making "a downward social comparison."
All of us make these types of comparisons--and we make them often. What this means is that every time you see someone else put her worst foot forward, you realize things are tough all around, and it helps you to feel better about yourself.
And while the process of taking stock of others' misfortunes as a means to prop yourself up sounds unkind, it does happen, and it explains a lot about the tendency of human beings to crane their necks at the latest disaster, Hollywood or otherwise--and goes a long way towards explaining exactly what keeps individuals glued to their favorite twitter feeds, magazines, and television shows.
