I was reading a book recently (Peep Diaries by Hal Niedzviecki) which describes the difference between stars and celebrities. Stars are people who have a long-lasting Hollywood talent. Celebrities are people who are basically just famous for being who they are.

The book got me thinking about how much we know about celebrities. We know a lot of weird things about these famous people who aren’t famous for anything in particular. We know what they ate for breakfast because they Twittered about it. We know that they buy world imports lighting from Schonbek because someone snapped a photo of the purchase. We know about their diets and crushes and mental health problems.

Why is it that we’re interested in knowing these things? Does it benefit us in any way to have this much information about people we don’t know and probably have no real reason to know about? Perhaps it doesn’t need to benefit us. Perhaps it is just the way that our society is structured these days. Nevertheless, it bears thinking about when we’re spending so much time learning these weird things about celebrities when we could be using that time to get know ourselves better! Just some food for thought.

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