Who Is A Celebrity?
Who is a celebrity, a very difficult question. Nobody really knows the meaning.
Wikipedia defines it as: A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media. The term is synonymous with wealth (commonly denoted as a person with fame and fortune), implied with great popular appeal, prominence in a particular field, and is easily recognized by the general public.
Who I think they are:
A person who does hard work, gets noticed, takes the dough, gets fat and doesn’t do anything else. The term is synonymous to Paranola (Paranoid people) who feel the world is ‘attacking them’ all the time and critics are being unjust by criticizing them.
Credit going where its deserved, the people whom we refer to as celebrities have done something good in whatever profession they have chosen, as a sportsman, as an actor, as a comedian, or probably even as a politician now. They are good at what they do and that’s why they are a celebrity.
But the problem lies here – “the people whom we refer to as celebrities have done something good in whatever profession they have chosen“; and not ‘have done something good in life’.
Don’t misunderstand me. There is a small subtle difference.
Have you seen Spiderman? Haha. Or have you at least heard that famous dialogue somebody now and then keeps repeating?
“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”
I wonder how many such “Celebs” have heard about it. I won’t take names and start pointing out, but all of you must be knowing many such instances when celebrities act irresponsibly, and use their celebrity status to get away with it. And sometimes even blame it on us!
“Just cause we’re a celebrity….” Bla bla.
A real life example from the city I live in:
There’s a friend of mine. He’s not that wealthy, say lower middle class if I was to categorize. He and his dad are great movie buffs! They try to see most of the movies in the theatre, otherwise they get ‘em on DVD or something. A new movie was releasing, and my friends dad wanted to take my friend for a preview. These previews are those shows which take place a day before the release at night, and its just one show.
He collected enough money for his family of five and he left to buy the tickets.
Now this is what happened: a man who struggles and works hard 24X7X52X365 stands in the queue, while a celebrity walks in and cuts the line to the front and buys all remaining seats.
Oh, and that celebrity had nothing to do with the movie. He was alone, and bought a row or two I think so that he could sit “alone without disturbance”. Its all true.
Anyways, coming back to the point. Who these demigods are.
Oops, my bad.. Who these celebrities are.
Oops, my bad.. Who these rich people are.
I think its the truth, no matter what you say. If you have money, you can buy it. I’m not talking about “love” and all here. Let’s face it, everything materialistic is pretty significant in life.
To live, they say, you need:
- air
- water
- food
- shelter
- clothing
And everything else is a luxury.
Can’t we put a price on everything?
Water, money; food, money; shelter, money; clothing, money… And who knows, soon we might need to pay for unpolluted clean air too.
They are lucky they can afford all this, while many can’t.
Not that I’m blaming them, mind you.
There are many celebrites who work for human welfare and other causes which I respect. But there are many who don’t, too.
I don’t even know why I wrote all this. My thoughts are a bit complicated, and I probably haven’t explained them simply enough here. But still, thank you for reading! And I’d be happy if you too could share your views with me via your comments here. :)
VERY nice read…. :-)
You write well !!!
celebs MUST BE down to earth.. some of ‘em carry a i’m something and egoistic kinda nature ‘ey are d most third class pple on earth who are blessed in disguise by god in a mistake and ‘ey’ve got d fame and royalty i’m strongly against ‘em.. keep ‘ier attitude with ‘em
I belive ur view about celebrities but I did not understrand what u want from celebs…..! I hope u make it better way out of celebrites.
when people of your stature comes up with something like this, it feels good to know that somebody cares and more importantly somebody “like you care”.
i agree with what you say sir. but……………..
what do you mean by “doing something good in life”?
well………. if that’s an open ended phrase, for me it would mean, love yourself, love and respect the people around you, love and respect the environment, love the work you do ,……………………………
the example that you have given…………..
the celebrity bought all the remaining seats by cutting the queue so that he could sit and enjoy the preview peacefully while your friend’s father could not get tickets for his family. firstly why was he allowed to cut the queue? not just because he is celebrity but also because he has money. he “misused” his power. he will be answerable to someone somewhere, for sure…………………
aren’t you a celebrity sir? your friend is very lucky!. so how did you “use” your powers to help him get five tickets for his family?
you are correct in telling “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility”!
but more importantly powerful people should be aware of their powers and should not misuse them and should be willing to shoulder responsibilities.
sir, you have written this page because you might have felt like writing it, or you might have just read something upsetting somewhere but while writing this you were completely aware that you too belong to the community of celebrities- the powerful people. but i am not a celebrity and i am not writing this because you or anyone one will read it but because “hum chote log hain saab, aap log jo kabhi kabhi dekhte hain, hum use roz jeete hain”.
forget about getting preview tickets, people in my place are deprived of basic education. they are even deprived of the right to dream.
Oh no no. I am not a celebrity! Why would I be a celebrity?
By doing something good in life… Hmm.. Perhaps I meant something for other people. Like you said, “respect for other people”.. How many celebrities respect other people?
i do agree. well……………. how many know that they don’t respect others?
1. Celebrities are created by common man. It’s the collective decision of the common man that makes or breaks a celebrity. As you already know, you can only appreciate the good, when there is evil, happiness when there is sadness, you can appreciate a Celebrity when there is Common man! The common man creates these demons or angles (as the case might be) for pure survival!!!
2. The basics of economics -Demand and Supply can also be used to understand this better. The skill set that a celebrity possesses is in short supply and therefore has greater demand, greater demand obviously has a higher price tag. If ‘common men with absolutely no skill set’ were in short supply, they would indeed become celebrities (assuming there is a lag between attaining celebrity status and wealth accumulation), they would become the richest bums !!! thankfully don’t see that happening in the near future..
So in order to be a celeb you should either have a skill set that is not abundantly available or a characteristic that is in short supply!(and also be lucky or at the right place at the right time!!etc).
3.Additionally, the celeb has to continue to harness the skill set that made him so desirable and keep it alive. He can’t just discontinue the skill and focus on kindness and responsibility!! Duh! The very fact that the celebrity is not kind/ responsible and humanlike, makes him godlike!! Or maybe devillike!!..for lack of a word thereof. If his life became more human it would kinda dilute his celebrityness….like Scotch on the rocks..nah still ok..wine on the rocks..ain’t so good:)
4.Just like food, clothing and shelter, ‘hope’ is a necessity & a motivator. Food , clothing , shelter are more physical needs. People need celebrities in their life, on a more emotional level, to hope for a better life, to cope with the realities of their current life, or to fantasize about a different life or merely just provide entertainment. Same reason we need movies and religion in our lives..and then again I digress..
5.There is also a celebrity lifecycle, the celeb has a ‘learning the famous lifestyle’ curve and then ‘the staying afloat curve’ (which often includes abusive consumption of certain unhealthy products that are made readily available!) that prevents him/her from thinking about other people’s needs. Their own needs might be so overpowering that they might not notice anyone else’s needs/ or they might not have the right advisory team. I would hold celebs responsible only maybe after a decade or so of being in the celebrity status/limelight, to actually do some good around the world. It’s like the politician standing for re-election who says, the 1st 4 years I worked for myself and my family, if you vote for me again, the next term I will work for your needs…but if you vote for the other guy, he will be busy filling his pockets first!! So vote for me!!
6.Case story: I don’t really understand why your friend did not work that 1 extra day in the leap year(365/366), I think we should try to forgive him for that.:) ..but yes the celeb should not have been allowed to cut thru the line. But again it happens all the time, bcos we let it happen. Need collective bargaining power and better theatre policies here!! Additionally, my guess is that the celeb was not powerful enough or rich enough to order the preview elsewhere and watch it in the comfort of his own home. For all you know he might have enjoyed cutting thru the line more than actually watching the preview!:) Here again your friend would have to choose what battles are worth fighting for??
8.Celebrities like Diamonds, are rare and expensive. Whoever said that the 5 C’s of diamonds included ‘k’indness, ..sorry kindness didn’t make the cut! While I have played Devil’s advocate here, one should not ignore the negative impact of a celeb’s actions on impressionable minds. That still remains a cause for concern.. I might as well argue for it …some other time…
7.Not really sure which side of the fence you are on? You seem to swing to and fro in the article. oops so do I.
reminds me of an important activity back in scool…”best out of waste”…money may be urs but resources arnt…if every1 learns to use it(resources) optimally we`d preety much be looking much better…every1 demigods…non deities every1 juz use as much as u need…u`l feel/look much better