Why are so many people obsessed with following celebrities lives and gossip about it?
Why are so many people obsessed with following celebrities lives and gossip about it?
Like, why do you care so much if she's sleeping with a new guy after just divorcing or her coming out or that rich family buying a new mansion? How does that affect your life?
As your perception sounds quite negative I'll try to change your view!
Instead of looking down on people fanatifally following a "celebrity", take pity on them:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasocial_interaction
In short: their brain chemistry tricks them into thinking that they are following a friend and have the emotional reactions and interests as we'd hope our real friends do.
I find it really sad to be honest.
I don't really understand it, but I think you can apply your argument to anything. Why watch Game of Thrones, how does that affect your life? Why browse Lemmy, how does that affect your life? Why play video games, how does that affect your life? Why watch sports, how does it affect your life?
The answer is probably something like "because I enjoy it", and the answer for the gossipers is probably the same. So who am I to judge.
From an evolutionary standpoint it's important to know what's going on with people close to you. Who are people close to you? Why, obviously people who you're familiar with - those whose faces you recognise and whose names you know.
So yeah, it's a bug in how we're coded.
Can I say something controversial?
Celebrity gossip has exactly the same appeal as Shipping and fan-theories, just for people who are more interested in reality than some TV-show.
So just let people enjoy things.
I have never thought of it like that before, but it makes SO much sense.
To add and reiterate what others have said:
- It's similar to following sports and knowing all the game results, who's injured/out for the season, etc.
- People like to feel part of larger society/culture, and to feel knowledgeable, to feel "in on things"
- It's a way to fill time/fill the void, a distraction from "real life" which can leave you feeling powerless/drained
- It can be a good conversation topic with friends when there's not much to talk about (or when other topics can be contentious)
I can somehow understand "following" celebrities lives. People like drama, it's not that much different than watching a shitty tv show or reality show. What I will never ever ever understand is people literally worshipping, giving money, defending and praising celebrities. It's straight up stupid behavior.
I agree it's stupid, but it's basically just people living through the success of others. Same thing happens with sports teams, people have "their team" and the team's success/failure can dramatically affect how they feel.
Because they’re stupid
I think most humans have a certain desire to gossip, probably a side effect of us being social animals. I can imagine that gossiping can be somewhat beneficial if you live in a tribe or small town.
With our way of life shifting to large cities in which you hardly know your neighbour, and digitalization making sure we regularly see these celebrities, I can see how that might trick our brains into caring about their everyday lives.
Yeah, you can imagine how within a small community, if person x was particularly bad at paying their debts for instance, that would eventually get around and people would stop loaning to them. This makes fewer people lose their own resources by not loaning them, but also just knowing that gossip happens creates a social pressure to conform to pro-social behaviors.
I have a take I've never heard before. For Americans anyway, celebrities are the royalty we never had and serve the same purpose, whatever that is.
As to the gossip, I think there's often a case of "look how the mighty have fallen" schadenfreude.
Because it's so much fun Jan, get it!
At least I guess that's the reason.
Nothing new under the sun...
This might come as a shock, but back in the day there were these things called "Newspapers" where people got almost all their news and information.
One of the more popular columns in a newspaper was the "Gossip Column", where a celebrity fortune could literally be made or lost depending on what that particular columnist wrote about them.
Hedda Hopper was NOTORIOUS for her column which ran from 1938 to 1966.
I feel like it's because we're told to. Celebrities are a big industry. Lots of money goes into making them and we think we're independent thinkers but we're not. We follow them because they know how to make us follow them. It could be a brown paper bag. If enough people tricked into being interested we all follow them.
An alternative idea is it's the same reason people like biographies or drama related stories.