"You know who Kevin Federline is, don't you? Why, for heaven's sake?"

This post made me laugh--especially your opening question. Ah, so true! But I hesitate (I'm sure we all would!) to label Federline a "high-status male." You do that later when talking about "male macaque monkeys [who] were willing to give up lots of delicious treats just to look at pictures of high-status males . . ."

I think you're right that for decades we've had people who were famous only for being famous. But there *is* surely something a little different about that phenomenon today, not least because *so many more* so-called celebrities actually have accomplished nothing. Not only do they have zero talent but they almost are famous for *that,* too. So the fact that reality TV shows or marrying a famous singer or such seemingly can turn one into a "high-status" figure seems a bit paradoxical here, and more about fantasy expectations than reality. People like Federline more-often are scorned as jokes, "bottom-feeders," and parasites, and eventually are kicked to the curb by a public insatiable for gossip about people who actually do more, like star in movies.

In short, I wonder if we're truly mirroring the male macaques, or whether more human factors--boredom, fascination, sadism, and fantasy, including the need to build people up before we tear them down--aren't more to do with it.

I think you are absolutely right to point out that our fascination with celebrities is similar in some ways to the fascination with high status individuals that can be observed throughout history and even among non-human primates and monkeys. But although this "status frenzy" is part of what we call celebrity, I don't agree that the two are equivalent. Historians who have studied celebrity tend to point out that we think differently about fame than people of other times and places. For example, the people who were enthralled by Richard very likely also held the hierarchical social ideas of the time. Today we tend to think that we are just like celebrities; part of the fascination is a feeling that we could be there ourselves. This is different from people who admire someone as a great hero or prophet who stands above them. I suppose we can agree to disagree about this--my perspective can be found at my blog Sex, Drugs, and Boredom (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sex-drugs-and-boredom)

I agree that there seem to be more talentless celebrities out there today, and that we are often indulging in that old friend, schadenfreude, when we watch them reveal their essential worthlessness in public – but that's not necessarily a paradox, nor is our vision of celebrity necessarily that different from the views of the past.

Here, as in so many other areas, we easily mistake the signal for the meaning. Just as junk food really is seductive, giving us all the stimuli we naturally crave – just without the nourishment – so junk culture passes on the social cues we naturally respond to: success in catching desirable mates, expensive habits, the very fact of attention (he must be someone - he's on TV). The treatment may have a degree of sophistication or irony, but the sub-text is something any other primate would understand: these are the individuals that the group is paying attention to. It takes a lot of self-awareness to be certain you're responding to real content (Nelson Mandela, say), no content (K-Fed), or something in between (as with, perhaps, Oprah).

And as for kicking ex-celebrities when they're down – have you ever seen how chimpanzees behave toward a deposed alpha male? Status is like a salary: we give it or we withhold it – but not all salaries are earned.