"Why are they doing this do you think?"
"Why do you think? To get famous."
"Ah yes, of course," said Coleridge. "Fame."
'Fame', he thought, 'the holy grail of a secular age'. The cruel and demanding deity that had replaced God. The one thing. The only thing, it seemed to Coleridge, that mattered any more. The great obsession, the all-encompassing national focus which occupied 90 per cent of every newspaper and 100 per cent of every magazine. Not faith, but fame.
"Fame", he murmured once more. "I hope they enjoy it."
"They won't," Geraldine replied.
Ben Elton, Dead Famous.
I am currently researching the creation of 'celebrity' by tabloid newspapers for my dissertation. I am looking into the representation of 'celebrities' in the tabloid press, and the culture of 'celebrity', the idea that nobodies can become famous overnight, and fade into obscurity just as quickly.
Graeme Turner explains in his book 'Understanding Celebrity' that the modern celebrity may claim no special achievements other than the attraction of public attention. Andy Warhol famously stated in 1968 that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." It seems like these days every where we look in the media a new large breasted blonde is blabbering on about shit all on the sofas of This Morning, or OK TV!, or the ever popular (sick-inducing, shameful portrayal of the female population) Loose Women. They just want to be FAMOUS at any cost.
But what is it that makes people strive for fame above, for example, professional success?
And when did we as readers become so wrapped up in the lives of the rich and famous? In the sleaze and scandal reporting of z-listers falling out of cabs/falling out of love/falling out with just about anyone else to make a name for themselves?
At one point, it is reported, the News of the World were offering a prize of £3,000 to anyone who could provide them with an account of 'adulterous sex with a well known personality'.
So my research continues. I want to find out why people would put themselves through exploitation and degradation by the British tabloid press, in the somewhat depressingly desperate attempt to clutch on to their 15 minutes, and why we, the British tax paying, reality TV watching (...guilty!), Peter Andre loving public, can't get enough of it.
