The Psychology of Modern Celebrity
19th April 2015
Garth, Taylor, Jen, Kim and Kanye: no need, evidently, to say Garth, Taylor, Jen, Kim and Kanye who, they are assumed to be as familiar to the reader as the persons living with them. And they themselves must presumably want to be familiar to others in this way: for whether a woman or a couple is trying for a baby is something that can be known only to her or to them, unless they want it to be known – or unless the magazines make the stories up out of whole cloth.
The psychology of modern celebrity is curious and interesting. There seems to be an implicit contract between celebrities and those who confer celebrity upon them. Celebrity is conferred on people almost, though not quite, at random: their talents are minor and their appearance pleasing, but they must not otherwise be remarkable or too far removed in their tastes and manner, at least in public, from those who give them their fame.