OK, time for my "You kids get off my lawn!" moment. I mean seriously, who the eff are Spencer and Heidi? I now know, thanks to my readers, who Jon and Kate are. (They're getting divorced and apparently Jon is moving to New York! Holla at a playa when you see me in them streets!! Sorry, it just sucks you in...) But these guys...
It's amazing. These days we have two levels of famous--regular famous. And fast-food famous. We probably always did. It's just that McFamous is experiencing record growth.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
I blame women.
Actually, I blame Duchamp.
Marcel? Humanity desceding a staircase in two-dimensional cubism?
We could go to the invention of the novel, which featured the lives of just folks as worthy subjects. James Joyce who took a nerdy young man and a somewhat meek ad man and put a light on into their inmost thoughts and banal behavior and cast them as the modern Telemachus and Odysseus.
Or more modernly a discourse on Marshall Mccluhan; of course, Andy Warhol. How about blogs? Facebook? Or the death of God and the hard existentialism that life is brief and then we die pitted v. the human ego, or the banality of contemporary existence.
Anyway, see Dick and Jane, not to mention their dog Spot and their kids--Brady Bunch gone reality bizarro? Soon, eternal holography beamed out to the far corners of the universe: Kilroy was here.
Yes, Marcel. But I wasn't thinking of the version of himself that actually did things, that actually made things. I was thinking about the readymade. I was thinking of Fountain. I was thinking of Bicycle Wheel. I was thinking of the guy who literally made a point of breaking down the walls between what is and is not art long before Warhol was born.
holy shit you guys are so high brow! I thought it was just a pop culture fascination with rich people.
Next to go all Derrida on ya: everything's a text. Highbrow/low ball--what's the diff--fast food gourmet world--even Mac Donald's in an ad so tunnel-visionly ironic it's hard to fathom sells coffee these days in a French accent--cubicle-lay. Bob Dylan singing for the Pepsi Generation with Will I Am. Kilroy/killjoy who can tell these days when the campiest American Idols block up the blogosphere with youtubia.
All restaurants are Taco Bell now.
Demolition Man is the highest of high-brow.
Spencer/Heidi and Jon/Kate and Paris Hilton and that whole collection fall under the label, "I hate you because I know who you are."
Don't you shop for groceries? Or do they not have tabloids displayed at the checkouts in NYC? I know about Jon and Kate from the covers of those. (Thus I also "know" that Brad and Angelina are breaking up, except when you see that headline steadily over several years it kinda loses any meaning. But the Eight are New! So they really are breaking up?)
Spencer and Heidi are on something called the Hills, which is either reality or sorta reality--whatever they're up to is not enough to get on the front cover of the Enquirer.
We're going to have this whole class of reality "stars" wandering around in 20 years asking if anyone remembers them...quite sad. I remember reading some about advice to a reality guy who was trying to break into acting, and the agent telling him to lose all the reality stuff on the resume: no one cares that you once ate a bug or fell off a giant inflatable horse, and bragging about it undercuts any claim you might make to actual acting chops.
Seems like plenty do make a career out of being "reality stars." Look at Elizabeth, "The View" host, she, as far as I recall, was on one round of Survivor and has parlayed her experience into a full-time gig. PR seems to be the most marketable skill these days.
I almost feel bad for "Octomom." You would think a single woman giving birh to eight would be enough to warrent a TV show... Might as well.
Spencer and Heidi... Spencer and... yah... yo no se
Not owning a TV has been a salvation of my sanity many a time.
Thank you thank you for 'McFamous'. Hope it catches on as a household adjective. Very useful.
I second this. "McFamous" just made my day.
I "third" it/also second it... it's by far the best way to describe the people that are famous due to reality tv pretending to show non-famous people, and people who market themselves really, really well.
This is what I find so messed up about this country. And I don't know who to blame, I just want to raise my kids right.
But, more people know about Jon and Kate, then, like, know who is Nancy Pelosi; then know that AIG and Goldman Sachs have f---ed us real bad; that the Health Insurance Companies are trying to f--- us over, that know that the US senate is structured in a way that essentially allows Senators from small states to get bribed to vote against their constituent's interest; that know that Obama is marginally better than W. was on civil liberties . . . .
Can I just say, as a 27 year old, I frickin hate this me first, self indulgent, entitled, sentiment that is imbued into my generation. Like, the Real World 14 or so years ago was kinda cool when I was 13. But shit, these "reality tv stars" aren't real stars. They are nothing to emulate. They are not examples of success or even illustrative of how people are "in their situation." They play act and really just want movie deals. Anyone remember "mike the miz" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Mizanin. That Douchebag. These people are losers. Whatever happened to reading books.
"I frickin hate this me first, self-indulgent, entitled sentiment that is imbued into my generation"
Amen. I blame Reagan.
Is Facebook/MySpace a symptom of that? (i.e. "I'm so interesting that everything I'm about and do should be the business of everyone I know")... What ever happened to conversing with someone to find out about their interests? Social dialogue? My own "Get off my lawn!"
We are a self-indulgent people. I blame the fact that food and shelter mostly come too easily to us and so we have far to much time to spend on that "self-actualization" part of the pyrimid. There are good things that come about from navel-gazing, and some bad. A lot of pop culture is the bad.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with spending time on the self-actualization part of the pyramid (though to be sure, I have some peers who could really benefit from having to acquire their own food and shelter the hard way) provided you strive to maintain a certain level of humility. It's a privelege... and with privelege comes responsibility...
Feh, I don't think of time spent in front of the TV as self-actualization in any way. I only wish people spent more time doing things that were actually meaningful to them.
I think of Facebook and MySpace more as a necessary sociological consequence, rather than a cause, of celebrity culture. There's only so many reality shows, we can't all be on them, we have to cope someway. Honestly, I think the two are demonized by intellectuals looking for something to blame, when, in reality, everyone's basically to blame.
Whatever happened to conversing with people? Well, we don't have nearly as many neighborhoods, and our non-internet communities are too narrow to support everyone. Maybe the Great Recession will change that.
Yep, that's what I was going for with "symptom". You can't really blame a tool for something...
But I disagree that it's a necessary coping mechanism... More of a "natural" outcropping from a culture bent on individualism... I think you absolve a certain level of personal responsibility when you write it off as coping. Coping with what? Not being famous? Boo.
Unfortunately, yeah, I do think people have to cope with not being famous. I mean, when you watch cable and see some idiot running his/her mouth, don't you ever wish you had a say? Isn't that what blogging is for? When you see Heidi and Spencer, isn't there a part of you that thinks that you'd be a much better celebrity? Aren't your friends a lot cooler than the Hills crowd?
Logically, I don't think it always makes sense, and yeah, I wouldn't want to absolve all personal responsibility. But I do think that fame and the quest for fame may be a lot more intoxicating in world with so much media.
That's a great point regarding the power of intoxication; I hadn't really thought of it that way before. I get my jollies in other methods :).
I used to write blogging and twitter off as just another symptom, much the same as FB/MS etc., but clearly, the Iranian revolution has proven Twitter has its uses, just as good bloggers like TNC have proven me wrong on that medium. The opportunity for me to eat my words remains.
I don't get the dislike for Facebook at all. Joining it has been one of the best things I've done for myself in awhile (even with the truly awful redesign that makes it impossible to weed the crap (quizzes, etc.) from the status updates.
It turned out to be a way to reconnect with people I didn't have in my life anymore, but wanted to be there. Critics of Facebook and these social networking sites will usually make some kind of lofty rhetorical statement about how people should pick up the phone and call each other. (Not you, trefingers -- I'm talking about pundits who are starting to get on my nerves.) People acknowledging reality will admit that there isn't nearly enough time in the day to keep in close touch with immediate family, let alone friends. Unless someone wants to grant us all a shorter workweek, free child care, etc., which would be nice, Facebook fills a void.
It's too easy to let people drift out of our lives when studies show that relationships are really the main thing that makes us happy.
I can sign onto Facebook and get a text form of the same casual interaction achieved by seeing someone on a daily basis. Someone announces their kid took his first step, someone passes around pictures of their vacation, someone mentions he craves ice cream ... these are all things you would encounter just walking through the office at work, but no one complains about everyone broadcasting their lives when it happens that way. Why is it any different because these things happen online?
I'm chatting now occasionally with people I knew back in college, friends I assumed lost. Because I read their status updates, we have a conversation starter more timely than "Hey, remember how we hung out over a decade ago?"
I keep my facebook group down to people I truly know and like, so anything I'm comfortable sharing anything I put on there. The updates from my friends are often wry and funny, we share pictures and links, sympathize, commiserate and joke.
And I kind of suspect that criticism of social networking sites as narcissistic is eventually going to go the way of "I hate talking to a machine" -- something so outdated you wonder what the fuss was back when.
tmv, aka, Mark Zuckerberg?
"But shit, these "reality tv stars" aren't real stars. They are nothing to emulate."
When were 'real' stars people we SHOULD emulate? Sorry, I just find the hand-wringing over reality TV stars to be just as silly as watching The Hills.
the only real star I ever wanted to emulate was Doris Day. When I started watching her "Pillow Talk" type comedies in the early to mid '60's I noticed that her characters almost always had a great job and a great apartment. As an "economically challenged" young African American girl, that "great apartment and great job" became my goal in life. And guess what? In the last 4 decades, I've had both, many times over. Who needs "reality" shows, when you can make your own?
"That Douchebag. These people are losers. Whatever happened to reading books."
Oh, and 'The Miz is obviously a douchebag, but at least he parlayed his 'fame' into a career that is probably going to allow him to retire at a very young age. He might be a insatiable reader...
Yeah, and even if the Miz wouldn't have gone on to wrestling, the prizes on those "challenge" shows really add up. I feel like some Real World/Road Rules people have been on those shows for a decade. Not to mention appearance fees for bars...
meh. it's like everything else on a mostly open market where there are a lot of choices - lots of it is garbage. doesn't do anything for me so i avoid it; it never made me dumber. yeah too much tv, especially w/ this kind of garbage, is bad for young'uns, but that's what parents are for.
but yeah it's sort of loserdom. weird i grew up thinking of myself as a loser but this stuff .. just a waste of time.
Come on, the 80s made a famous for 12 minutes an Australian Rules football (or was it rugby?) player who grimaced a lot and carried large batteries on his back. If I remember correctly.
I can't wait until you ask about The Real Housewives of New Jersey.
OY! Why are any of those people on television? I want to find that Bravo guy (Andy Stein?) an do physical harm to him for all of those "real housewives" and "nyc prep." Blech.
It used to really piss me off that there were almost no "Housewives" of color on these shows, until I actually watched one. Now I think we really dodged a bullet.
Part Two of the reunion is tonight!
Sorry for the length of this comment, but I think it is on point, and you are now wandering into a field of history I know more about and can contribute rather than enjoy at a distance.
This whole Jon and Kate (and truth be told Octomom) has fascinated me because my work awhile back introduced me to the Dionne Quintuplets in the 1930's. These were a set of Quints born in Canada who were taken from their parents and made into Canada's most popular tourist attraction "Quint Land" which drew more people than even Canada's side of Niagara Falls. They were, in TNC's formulation, definitely McFamous all over North America and graced the covers of Time, Life and all the rest and were regular features in the Newsreels. They were used to sell all kinds of things like milk, Karo syrup, cars, and anything else that benefited from a wholesome image.
There really isn't a solid book about them I can recommend but just Googling them and looking them up on Wikipedia will give you the flavor. Go to eBay and to a search and you can see what kind of crap you can still collect with their likenesses.
I bring this up because while it does look worse today, this type of thing has been around a long time. During the 19th Century the McFamous tended to be Barnum style Freaks like Tom Thumb or George Washington's 125 year old Governess or faux Cowboy showman who traveled in Wild West Shows, or my favorite, Sam Patch who went around the North East jumping off water falls at picnics and fairs. There is a really good book about him called Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper by Paul E. Johnson. There is also an excellent book about the slave who was touted as being Washington's governess called The Showman and The Slave: Race, Death, and Memory in Barnum's America
This trend might be more pronounced today due to the growth of media outlets to build up and tear down these types of McFamous people (I'm totally using that, did you coin it TNC) quickly and in front of ever more people for ever more money, but the trend is the same as it ever was. There is also the fact that these earlier examples died long before we had the technology to record their every act and people had to buy a newspaper or visit these celebrities live when they came through town. Now, as people point out, you can't get through a grocery store of even log onto the internet without being confronted by their faces and thanks to technology their faces will be around forever.
It's like the difference between looking at a field from a distance as oppose to standing in it. From a distance all you can see is green grass, flowers, and a cute fox. When you are standing in it you are bitten by the bugs, assaulted by hay fever, and can smell the left over carcass of hte bunny the fax just ate.
History can be like that especially when you are talking about pop culture. It always looks better from a distance.
I will now take my football off your lawn Old Man Coates.
OK. I'm new in here... but that aside, I liked your comment Adolphus. I think, to take it a step further, when we look back at the "traveling Circus," there is at least some disdain for the blatant exploitation that took place. Remember in the '90s when being a "sellout" was considered horrible... or just wack? It seems like we have brushed that term under the rug. It's all about "making that money" -- by any means...
I hear what you are saying... it's not a new concept... but with no checks and balances, kids will one day have no clue as to who was a real actor and who wasn't. At this point, it's hard to decipher real news from... commentary. We are in a Mc-something state these days.
off-topic, just curious - is your handle "Nandi" Indian?
Yea exactly. We have more media than ever, so it gets magnified. God only knows what we'd have known about 70s celebrities even with the internet.
"From a distance all you can see is green grass, flowers, and a cute fox. When you are standing in it you are bitten by the bugs, assaulted by hay fever, and can smell the left over carcass of the bunny the fox just ate." - I love that. In fact, I'm likely to steal it.
Also, I'm in Chicago, and our resident Beatles expert (Terri Hemmert, WXRT) likes to occasionally remind people of the inSANE merchandising that swirled around the Fab Four back in the (pre-internet) day. From nail polish to lunch boxes to wigs. While the Beatles (of course) actually deserved massive attention, it seems that there is nothing that cannot be turned into a purely capitalist enterprise -- and if the point is to create a capitalist enterprise in the first place (ie: reality TV and the tabloids)? Well then, the path to overload is very short indeed!
Thanks for this enlightening comment.
McFamous is the perfect encapsualtion of Andy Warhol's idea about 15 minutes of fame.
shortly after I came to terms with the fact that the Wire was really over I gave up on cable but unfortunatley not before seeing these really depressing additions to the tabloid fodder on what I still think of as Talk Soup and even as the butt of jokes they were hard to take, what gets to me mostly about this is that my tweener/gradeschool niece knows,and worse cares, who they are and that's a crime.
There's just too much access to people nowadays, and that's why these people are McFamous. Reality shows, MySpace, blogs, FaceBook, Twitter, texting, cellphones, pdas etc....all designed to enter people's lives and find out what they are doing/thinking and/or have access to others 24 hours per day. I know Twitter is getting a lot of props right now because of the situation in Iran (and it should) but most people's tweets are ridiculous exercises in navel gazing. Ugh.
Suddenly, I feel 80 years old.
CK, you are 80 years old. Deal. My advice: Ride the Bus!
My ignorance is (was) bliss. It wasn't until a few days ago that I saw my first Jon & Kate tabloid. I thought, "Who the hell are these jerks? I'm well-versed in pop-kultur-trash, why don't I know them? Where's Angelina's alien bat boy baby?"
Now I know a tiny bit, but that is it. For all of the facebook/twitter/blog-time I blart out, I feel that my baffles are well in place. I have no lawn and I must scream. McFamous, I shun you.
haha... bat baby.... are we showing our age by chuckling at that? does anybody still read bat baby tabloids? do they still do that story? i haven't been in a proper supermarket for a while, been getting groceries from delis/bodegas/smaller markets lately.
man this stuff moves fast... i'm 29..
I think it's wrong to place blame on social networking sites or other means of personal communication. I think that's conflating the disease (i.e. celebrity obsession and self-entitlement) with the means by which it is spread.
Permazorch > That's cold man. I certainly feel old for sure. And I ride the bus every once in a while.
BreakerBaker > I'm not blaming the social networking sites, I think they have some value, sometimes. I blame the obsessive need to have access (i.e. be all up in everyone's business) 24 hours a day. I think the social networking sites are just a symptom of the disease. Not only do people need access to others, they want to give everyone constant updates in their lives, no matter how mundane. People tweet/update their facebook status with such essential information as going to bed, going to the bathroom, at work, bored in class, etc. Thanks for the update! Except not really.
I guess everyone wants their 15 minutes. Drive-thru fame. McFamous indeed.
At the risk of taking the metaphor too seriously, they're still not symptoms. They are the infected, the carrier of the symptom, digitized. But yeah, I know what you mean.
well if we are really going to settle down in our rocking chairs on the frontporch with our shotguns at hand there seem to be two related problems here one is the odd conflation of the legal right to free speech with the specious, and ironically antidemocratic, idea that all ideas/beliefs/opinions are equal and worthy of attention/reaction, and the increasingly prevelant inability of people to deal with life without some form of stimulation be it electronic or chemical, including food, which has created whole new categories of seperation anxiety, check out Robert Bly's book the Sibling Society to see some interesting thoughts on what happens to a society when everyone regardless of their actual age is caught up in teenage gossip/fashion trying to fit in. between this post and coming to terms with 20yrs since the release of Do The Right Thing I am feeling my increasingly outer old-man self taking over, is there a cure?
I keep seeing them plastered on the cover of US Weekly while I'm waiting in line to by 2 things of deoderant and a toothbrush at the CVS across the street from me.
I lost touch with the McFamous set years ago. I frequently have no idea who the hosts on SNL are anymore, either.
I still don't know who Jon and Kate were other than they are unhappily married. It's never news when Tom thinks Linda is the best thing that ever happened to him and when Linda thinks Tom is so cute with the grandchildren after 25 years of marriage, because that's boring, isn't it?
The best face I can put on this misery seeking voyeurism is that maybe it provides cautionary tales. Happiness is hard work, and it's really easy to go off track.
This is how reality TV works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVM1xCP7Oy4
It's actually a good thing that you don't know who these people are. There used to be cable channels that were a refuge from the thermonuclear douchebaggery represented by the likes of Jon, Kate, Spencer, and Heidi. Now these people are taking them over, too.
On another note, MTV has managed to substantially ruin television, radio, and popular music. That's a pretty impressive trifecta of destruction.
I just learned about Jon & Kate last week. These people are famous for being famous. That's it. There is nothing more to it.
I blame the studios for not settling the writers strike with more fairness to the writers. Because now we just have more reality TV, and that shit will rot your brains.
Truly famous people, (e.g.,Lindsay Lohan,Paula Abdul,Simon, O.J.,Rush Limbaugh), are often tough to stomach, but at least we can often point to some body of work (The Juice tore it up on the gridiron, Abdul was a Laker Girl, and I secretly liked "Mean Girls")that earned them celebrity status, even if they have major character flaws or aren't even the best in their respective fields.
However, this latest fad of media-generated fame gleaned from simply being on television is sick, perverted, and has ruined countless lives in the process. It isn't that new an idea. In the 1950s quiz shows created new stars every night. When a new winner was created, the loser was cast aside. Author/Prof. Charles van Doren lost a lifetime of academic integrity and respect when he admitted he cheated alon with the show's producers just for ratings and $$. Others sought psychiatric counseling, many were left unemployable. Dr. Joyce Brothers saw through the charade and created a new career as a Radio/TV shrink.TV is a vast wasteland of cognitive dissonance; great writing from Twilight Zone, to Mad Men, some great comedy, (Flip Wilson, Sid Caesar, Sanford and Son, Newhart), and then just a huge pasture of pure unadulterated trash.
What's particularly galling about this is the children whose otherwise fairly normal childhoods have been sacrificed and sold to the devil for $$$. "Not now, Mommy, can't you see I'm doing an interview?" Oh, but, great--you have homework--ah, I guess it can wait. Interviews come first in this family,
It's The Truman Show coming to fruition:life imitates art. Insanity gets played out as the norm, and then, TV news just becomes a bit less real...
There are just way too many kinds of famous out there - here's my incomplete list of categories:
1. Real Famous: Angelina Jolie, LeBron James, the Dalai Lama
2. Kind of Famous: Jim Broadbent, Regina Spektor, Steve Buscemi
3. Niche Famous: Bruce Campbell, Ute Lemper, JG Ballard, Our Beloved Mr. Coates
4. Fake Famous: Paris Hilton, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Kevin Federline
5. Formerly Famous, Downgraded (Intentionally): Flava Flav, Gary Busey
6. Formerly Famous, Downgraded (Inadvertently): Phil Spector, Nick Nolte, Sen. Harry Reid
7. Formerly Famous, Out of Sight: Geez, I though he/she was dead . . .
8. Reality Famous (Intentional): Octo-mom, Supernanny, Sarah Palin's Kids, Meerkat Manor
9. Reality Famous (Inadvertent): Chelsey Sullenberger, Lisa Nowak, Meerkat Manor (the kats don't even know they're famous!)
10. Reality Famous (One-shot): Single-episode reality show participants (What Not to Wear, Tyra Banks Show, House Hunters, Fox and Friends)
11. Reality Famous (Youtube): Don't tase me, bro!, Lonelygirl15, Anyone with a cat
12. Formerly Reality Famous, Downgraded: Richard Hatch, Valerie Plame
13. Non-Famous: Me, and apparently about a dozen other people.
I would've come up with more, but my head hurts. Cripes, we're a confusing culture.
I just rented Burn Notice because of Bruce Campbell, whom I heard on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. Clearly I am in the fans-of-the-niche-famous niche.
The first 3 eps are funny and I recommend it.
This is brilliant! Though I would argue that Paris, Zsa Zsa and K-Fed are Falsely Famous, or perhaps Famous For All the Wrong Reasons? For sadly, their Fame is not Fake, but rather all together too Real.
I'll give an old fashioned "pshaw" to all the complaining. People like Heidi and Spencer and Jon and Kate and Paris Hilton DO serve a purpose: they are the 21st century version of outlandish neighbors we all get to gossip about. My grandparents still live on the same street where they grew up, and they and all of their friends from elementary school have all of the same acquaintances, and when they get together, they gossip about those people, for fun. Actually, "gossip" has malicious connotations but usually it's very harmless (things like "so-and-so had a cute baby"; "so-and-so did a good job in the local theater production"; only occasionally things like "so-and-so is cheating on his wife... again") I live hundreds of miles away from my elementary school friends and the only common acquaintances we have to gossip about are celebrities. It's entertaining, it's harmless, and it gives friends and strangers something to bond over. Let's be real, people: it's not like we would all spend more of our time discussing health care reform and peace in the middle east if they banned reality TV.
I agree with Lee that this isn't a big deal. I don't know half the names on that list, and all I know about the Jon and Kate thing is that they're some big family, on reality TV, who are now getting divorced. A couple weeks ago I couldn't even have told you that much.
If you don't like it, just don't watch it. I can testify that it's working for me.
seconded
i meant, i second this from tmv "If you don't like it, just don't watch it. I can testify that it's working for me."
Funny. I asked the same question that TNC did a couple of weeks ago.
Especially after the "dimwitted duo" asked who Al Roker was.
I feel like I need to interject something here, though re: Jon & Kate + 8.
My wife watches the show. I glance at it in passing as I wander through the living room. But this season is the show's fifth year on TLC.
That's right: fifth.
It's not a new television program.
When it first came on, we lived in Central PA, about two to three hours from the Goeslin homestead. Initially, the show was a true documentary-style program about how this nascent family was handling the difficulty of raising twin 3 year old girls and a group of newborn sextuplets.
That's what it was all about, Charlie Brown.
But somewhere in the second or third season, it started to morph into the multi-vehicle pileup that it has begun.
And while the Goeslins are partly to blame...I also blame the producers and the television network for what it has become.
But you know what? We, collectively, as a society, are to blame as well for consuming this stuff.
I haven't gone back to review the demographic numbers, but I am sure that as the J&K train drifted off the rails over the last few years, the ratings numbers have gone up.
And we all know that ratings drive the cash cow. And it's all about the C.R.E.A.M. for the networks.
I have a job. so try to keep blog comments to a minimum in the morning, but didn't want this to pass by: I don't watch TV anymore and I shop in a farmer's market with no checkout lines, I don't frequent malls or grocery stores or usually any retail stores, and all the bars and restaurants I frequent I usually go there to drink and eat, so there aren't any t.v.'s. The only Reality TV I have ever seen was the first season of Survivor (Americans on a desert isle sounds like Lord of the Flies meets Gilligan's Island, what fun) and the Real World up to the second New York season, and to top it off, I live in Atlanta, one of the biggest cities in the country.
All that being said, I'm mad as crap that I have to know anything about the Hills or the +8. In my world, we call women with 8 kids crackwhores, and we call prissy white kids who live only for fame and notoriety University of Georgia graduates (Go Dawgs!). Thanks Yahoo for letting me know who these folks are and wasting my time thinking about it. Aren't there like 170+ other countries in the world where there is stuff happening, or do their governments all need reality shows based on them for us to care?
...and hey folks, I'm usually the most lib person on the block, but the thread here all seems to be about blaming someone, stop blaming and start shaming. Shame your friends and family for talking about and watching these people and maybe you'll make some headway is figuring out how to minimize the people in our lives...
Thanks for this, McFamous...funny as hell. "You're the diet coke of famous, only 1 calorie....still not famous enough."
Seriously, it does seem that narcisim is a bit like an STD in today's society. Perhaps we could call it the Pox Americana. I don't understand it. Reality T.V. has given us a few real gems, for instance, I think everyone's jaw dropped the first time they heard Susan Boyle, and we have reality T.V. to thank for that, but we also have to thank them for too many real housewives, househusbands, and spoiled people in general.
If you'll excuse me I'm off to watch booknotes......... oh wait booknotes was cancelled.
Respectfully taking myself away from your lawn. That shotgun looks awfully big.
Funny that you call them "fast food famous", because just last night I saw this new sexed up Carl's Jr. ad with Audrina from "The Hills".
Still, it's got nothin' on the one with Padma.
fapfapfapfwipfapfwipfap
**uh, sorry**
A lot of people here and elsewhere break out the "we as a society are to blame because we watch it etc etc."
Dave above says
"But you know what? We, collectively, as a society, are to blame as well for consuming this stuff.
I haven't gone back to review the demographic numbers, but I am sure that as the J&K train drifted off the rails over the last few years, the ratings numbers have gone up."
I looked up the ratings at Entertainment Weekly and according to them, the big J&K +8 season finale, their most watched episode ever, drew in 4.6 million viewers. There is what, 300 million Americans not counting tourists, illegal immigrants, and people here on student and work visas?
According to my calculator that means only about 1.5% of Americans watched their most watched episode.
I have a hard time for blaming society at large for the questionable taste of 1.5% of its population. What gets under my skin is the media that creates these stars fill our airwaves, internet, and publications with more and more drivel about them in some sort of synergistic, symbiotic relationship to that 1.5% (heck lets call it 5% and assume that some people wanted to watch but had to work) to make these McCelebrities seem more popular and important than they really are.
And the irony is that those of us in the 95-98.5% who insist upon talking about how much we hate them only fuel the buzz and their artificial sense of importance and popularity.
Many people writing here seem to feel that celebrity worship is exclucivly an American activity.Sadly, this is not the case.
Whenever i read the British newspapers online [especially The London Times] ,it is obvious that the British are worse than we are.
Many of these "reality" shows started in Europe .Big Brother [ created in Germany] , Survivor [ started in Britain], ect. Even American Idol was origianly Pop Idol in the UK.
Celebrity worship is as old as humanity.We are just more high tech now, that's all.
I make fun of these shows until I actually sit down and watch one (unavoidable with three teenagers in the house and my bad parenting). I find them irresistible. Housewives of NJ + Rock of Love = TV crack. I still make fun of them while I'm watching them, but I can't stop! Until the kids kick me out for making too many disparaging comments.
"Who are these people?" I believe the only correct answer is "Who Cares?"