Insight Is 20/20

Exploring the pervasive, and unperceived, patterns that govern our lives.

by Seth Meyers and Katie Gilbert

Celebrity Gossip = Our Own Inner Boredom

What your star-struck fixation may reveal about your life

Published on July 9, 2009 by Seth Meyers, Psy.D. in Insight Is 20/20

Don't those scandal-hungry paparazzi vultures wish they'd been in my shoes this weekend: At a fancy Santa Barbara resort, my fellow vacationers and I watched as a very high-profile couple reunited after a nasty public split. As news spread of the couple canoodling by the pool and walking intertwined down garden paths, the resort was sent aflutter with celebrity gossip.

As I noticed resort-wide chatter focusing ever more exclusively on the couple's tryst, I wondered why any of us should care about the private lives of two people we'd never met. What does that say about our own supposedly exciting lives?

Our love of a celebrity's downward spiral is understandable enough, though not necessarily evidence of our loftiest traits - social psychology tells us that focusing on anyone down on their luck makes us feel better about our own lives. Yet anyone who's stood in a grocery store line and glanced at magazine covers can tell you that tabloid-o-philes aren't exclusively drawn to the negative. They often are equally interested in hearing about celebrity marriages, childbirths, giddy beach dates, and the like.

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As I consider the issue, something an old clinical mentor of mine once said comes to mind: Every time you idealize someone else, you necessarily devalue yourself. It's my belief that our fascination with celebrity news points to a festering boredom in our own lives. It's tempting to reject this notion on its face, but boil the point down to its simplest essence: Somehow the lives of these two-dimensional strangers must seem comparatively more interesting than our own three-dimensional versions - otherwise, we wouldn't care.

If you are a tabloid reader or one prone to gossip about the lives of celebrities, take a moment to examine the nature of your interest. Give yourself a break and trust that the number of homes or lovers a celebrity boasts has nothing to do with how inherently valuable or interesting that person is independent of all of the external attributes. In the end, despite all the superficially exciting accoutrements, my guess is that the celebrity couple that created so much buzz this past weekend may deal with feelings of inadequacy just as potent as the tabloid readers who idealize them.