Fame
I have been thinking a lot lately about why people want
to be famous and why they want to run around after famous people.
Celebrity groupies must be one of the saddest bunches of people out there.
They form a weird social group and are thus worthy of study. This is a
social phenomenon and must reflect something we all share to some degree
or it would not be happening. Thus, it begs the wider question of what
people see in fame that is so attractive to them. Thinking along those
lines, my first thought was that it must reflect a desire to be something
really interesting, which implies already that such a person is bored to
death with themselves the way they are. How could a person who is really
interesting and happy with themselves the way they are, possibly contrive
such thoughts? They couldnt. Therefore, the fact that people want to be
famous, as an end in itself, is weird, as it proves they are unhappy with
themselves and their life as it is now.
Bearing in mind also that the way they are now is
ultimately the product of all their own decisions they have ever made,
then it follows that they are where they want to be and where they have
allowed themselves to be. Thus, on that basis we are all who we want to be
and cannot blame anyone else for the state of our life and our level of
possible dissatisfaction with it. It therefore begs another question – how
could it possibly be improved by hankering after famous celebs? These were
my initial thoughts on this matter.
What is also apparent about this subject is the way
people seem to claim ownership of famous people. The thing that really
irritates the famous, is the way they get spotted and folks ask for
autographs or stalk them and other wierd things like hanging around
airports just to see famous people, or going through their garbage. What
does such behaviour denote? Well, it certainly denotes that such people
wish to be famous and wish to hang out with famous people. However, it
also shows that through over-familiarity with some famous person in the
media, that they feel they know them really well and that they are already
their best friends. That then gives them ‘the right’, in their view, to
stalk them, ring their home, find their address, and hang about in places
where such famous people might just show up. Thus, the groupie projects
onto the famous person they love a sense of ownership, which is entirely
projected and comes only from their side. It is not manufactured from the
side of the celebrity.
Celebrities often complain about not being able to walk
in the street, go in high street shops, or do other commonplace things
that ordinary people do, as they would be mobbed and would feel threatened
or insecure in some way. They must travel in stretch limos and have
minders and live in protected houses. This means that fame is by no means
as great as non-famous people think. In fact, it is for the worst a form
of prison, which they have no hope of ever escaping from. The likes of Liz
Taylor, Paul McCartney, Tom Cruise, Madonna and Michael Jackson, obviously
could never expect to go anywhere without being recognised and mobbed.
That is an awful prospect from their personal point of view. It means
their life has been changed permanently by their fame.
The whole fame trip seems also to revolve around this
sense in the groupies head that the celebrity likes them as much as
they do. I would call this the celebritisation of ordinary people. Such
people as lottery winners and sportspersons suddenly find they are big
media celebs and are thus regarded as divine in some way. They have a form
of divinity conferred upon them by society. They are mobbed wherever they
go and people believe they can heal the sick and perform miracles. Thus,
they have been canonised by their followers. The groupies thus want the
celeb to like them as much as they like them. This means they want them to
be ordinary as well as famous. In the case of lottery winners and people
made famous as TV stars, there is a desire to be close to that person so
that some of their divinity rubs off on the groupie. Moreover, the groupie
wants to own the celeb, as if they have been really close bosom buddies
all their lives. That they have no hope of this seems not to even figure
in their perspective.
On a deeper level, I suppose fame is a bid for
immortality. The desire to be famous, as an end in itself, seems to be a
desire to be seen as special and to go down in history for all time as
someone special, who stands out from the crowd. Many such people have no
talent whatsoever and thus have no chance of ever being famous for
something; therefore, they just wish to be famous as an end in itself.
These must be the saddest people of all! They must think their life would
be wasted if it never happened. They wish to wrench from life a form of
permanence that is denied to everyone else. Everyone else lives their
anonymous little life as it is and as it comes along, regardless of and
oblivious to fame and fortune. Most people regard fame and fortune as a
pipe dream not worth investing much time and effort towards. Begrudgingly
perhaps, they accept their status in society whatever they do. Some modest
people even dislike fame and would never wish it to come their way.
One could suppose that this desire for fame and
permanence represents our desire to triumph over the normal forces of
death, loss, decay and dispersal, which is a law of nature. All of us must
die and in the end, no-one is special and no-one will be remembered
forever. Thus, to become famous, even briefly, is to triumph over this
law, to do some serious damage to it and become immortalised. There is
thus the desire to win, to beat the system and that involves a certain
thrill, a certain form of joy. It also involves a certain amount of
arrogance, for which many famous people are also famous. There is an ego
element.
People also think there is a special aura hovering
around all famous people, as if they have some peculiar radiance about
them, a special quality, which others dont have. This was how people
looked upon the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the 60s. It is a scene
all big pop groups seem to get wrapped up in. It is part of the pop
industry to think along those lines. Though it is a convenient belief for
the sad and lonely, the fact is that there is no special aura and there is
no radiant quality hovering around any of these people. Famous people are
nobodies who think they are somebody and they are mostly just as sad as
the groupies who hang round after them. Arguably, they both need each
other and feed off each others pathology. They share an addiction with
fame and narcissism. They are on the same trip. A very different trip from
most ordinary members of the human race.
The desire of famous people to break free of their
groupies is also a myth. They love the attention, the adoration they get
and though it might be occasionally inconvenient, they would have it no
other way. They mostly believe in their fame and high status precisely to
the same degree that people hover round them like flies round shit!
Without that attention and adoration and inconvenience, their fame and
status would be thrown into some doubt. In reality, they are the same as
us, but for their life, they convince themselves otherwise and believe the
same script as their hyped fans and devotees. Believing in your own
superstardom and divinity seems to be part of the deal. It panders to
their sense of royal status. Royals and aristocrats everywhere also
indulge these same grand delusions about themselves. It is a form of
nonsense that is as old as the hills. No-one is that special and yet in
another sense everyone is. And the most special of all are the ordinary,
modest people who are happy with themselves just the way they are. They
are the most special people in the human race. They are happy. Goody for
them. Fame? It is an illusion.