Tuesday 20 April 2010

On Hating on 'Celebrity Culture'

So easy, isn't it, to hate on celebrity culture? But what exactly are you hating? The celebrities? ALL celebrities? People who like celebrities? People who like which celebrities? What about people who just have loads of facebook friends? What about people who are famous cos they were murdered? What about people who are famous cos they invented a miracle cure for a disease or something?
What about people who are famous for hating on celebrity culture?
eh? EH? EHHH?
I don't think I know what celebrity culture is... can you please enlighten me?

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist, she is... let's say... a critic of 'celebrity culture' ('aren't ALL guardian journalists hating on celebrity culture' you ask? Maybe.) and in series 2 of one of my favourite tv programs Newswipe she was given a small feature where she talked about various celebrities who endorse various charities or causes and how it's bad... bad... naughty and shameless self-promotion and it's just so...tacky ... oh, unless you're Joanna Lumley of course.

Celebrities exist, they are famous because they are actors, or singers or entertainers of some kind mostly...and they usually have lots of money, and lots of time to spend that money. But what do you bloody want Marina? They're bringing publicity to the cause, it's better than just doing... whatever all the other celebrities do! I don't care if they are doing it just to promote themselves, I don't care! It's a hell of a lot better than doing fuck-all!

Most of this sniffiness about celebrities is just a nouveau version of snobbery towards the nouveau riche, it always comes from an upper class person. It's so EASY to do, it's such a knee-jerk reaction.
I looked Marina Hyde up on wikipedia and her Dad was a 'sir' and she went to Oxford so... Yeah, Marina, of course you hate celebrities, they have so much unearned wealth and status, not like you! And they're so low-brow. And working class people actually like them, the idiots!

I, for some stupid reason, wrote a comment on the youtube of the program in question. this is it:

SiLeNtPuNk1 I sort of WANTED to like Marina Hyde but I don't think she really has anything interesting to say, on this occassion, just seems like knee jerk snobbery towards celebrities and the consumers of 'celebrity culture'. At least they ARE political, at least they are doing something, bringing publicity to causes. plenty of celebrities seem happily empty headed, where are their opinions? I know if I found fame, I'd be going on about my opinions, causes I care about, injustices in the world all the time

And then, for some stupid reason, I checked my Gmail at some point and saw that some Troll-ish person had commented back.

WeNeedSomeGolfShoes Right, and how is bringing publicity to these causes in any way supposed help them? Other then give the celebrity in question a quick popularity boost?

And if you seriously find fame and start galavanting your opinion as if it would make a meassure of a difference, I garentee you I will be the first one to laugh in your face.


AND HE GOT 2 THUMBS UP FROM THE YOUTUBE COMMUNITY!
Yeah cos bringing publicity to charities doesn't help them at all! charities just want a quiet life, in fact a lot of them are SECRET charities who don't want any money or attention of any kind!

He also obviously misses the fact that Charlie Brooker is a celebrity and to a lesser degree so is Marina Hyde, and if they were some nobody on the street he most likely wouldn't have heard them 'galavanting' their opinions at all and wouldn't have so much obvious respect for them. I guess he would have less respect for them if they happened to have been actors first. In these people's minds, if you become and actor or a singer or a model, should your mouth be glued shut for the rest of time? Are they no longer allowed to participate or comment politically?


btw, fyi, if you didn't know, I LOVE Charlie Brooker, but he has actually mentioned that sexists misinterpret his affected misanthropic style as misogyny in sexist comments on the Guardian website. I try to avoid comments on Brooker stuff cos I hate seeing idiots who seem to think Charlie Brooker is one of them. Shudder...



2 comments:

Hat said...

Haha what a twat! His comment was so irritating and populist. Like that line "I'll be the first to laugh in your face" I bet he got turned on as he wrote that sentence as it made him feel so powerful.

But thats what you get for commenting on a youtube video! Always gonna get some reply like that which is why I never comment on them anymore :P
xxx

Jennifer said...

hahaha yeah

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