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.
That took a different but interesting turn than I expected after the first paragraph. Thanks for the read. And I agree, that’s sad.
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.
My hobbies could beat up your hobbies
Nice one
People like drama and celebs are like casual acquaintances that everyone knows.
This is probably the best way I’ve heard it explained, ever
Honestly, that’s pretty close to my reason. It’s more like “I love hot tea, and celebrities are a guilt-free source of it,” though.
It’s kind of a mutually beneficial relationship, in a way. Many celebrities (not all, the ones that don’t aren’t ones I enjoy hearing about because it feels to much like invading someone’s privacy) thrive on having their names constantly in the tables, and I get enjoyment from the schadenfreude. Kinda like pro wrestling, maybe?
I’ve been wondering the same about Elon Musk. Here seemingly nobody likes him yet there’s a daily feed of articles about him with haters talking shit in the comments. Since I don’t follow celebrity news and I have him blocked on twitter that dude would effectively not exist to me if it wasn’t for Lemmy constantly providing me updates on what he’s up to.
Why pay attention to something that just makes you angry…
He bought the biggest platform and forces his weirdo content onto it and that has an effect on the other platforms that use that content because they’re no creative. It’s not that he’s actually popular. We all despise that shit bag fuck.
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.
They can enjoy whatever they want, I still think they’re goofy.
For sure… but those 2 groups are both equally goofy.
Imagine if they were left alone in a room <3
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.
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’m not into celebrity gossip, but from what I can tell based on people I’ve seen who are into it, I think it’s less about the celebrities themselves and more about enjoying gossip in general. If you and your friends are really into gossip, but you don’t have anything new to say about people you know in real life, you can gossip about celebrities instead. It’s just a thing you can enjoy talking about despite not having any actual connection to it.
Because they’re stupid
An alternative idea is it’s the same reason people like biographies or drama related stories.
Because they have no lives of their own.
Because it’s so much fun Jan, get it!
At least I guess that’s the reason.
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.
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.
