Last December, sort of out of nowhere, I decided to stop reading two celebrity gossip websites (People and Just Jared) I had been reading every day for a long time. I'm not sure what exactly prompted me to stop. I think I just finally (and really about time!) got bored of looking at pictures of celebrities I really didn't care about go about their daily lives. I also realized how the approximately 20 minutes (give or take) I was spending each night looking at these two websites while I ran my bath, could be much better spent doing other things. I have not, for a second, regretted my decision. I now don't stay on the internet as late anymore and instead spend more time reading my book every night; as well, I now more regularly read and look at other, much more interesting blogs like Salon and Jezebel (which conveniently regularly mention celebrities...)
So in a way I quit cold turkey, except that I still read the Entertainment section of the Huffington Post almost every day. Clearly I haven't been able to tear myself completely away from celebrity gossip, and I wonder why? The desire to click through 30 barely different photos of Jennifer Garner (or any other celebrity) walking down the street is thankfully gone (was it even ever there to begin with? I'm not sure... It must have been in a small way, but it really became more automatic in the sense that I went to Just Jared and clicked through the pictures pretty much on auto pilot). But, the desire to know more about celebrities' lives is not. Every time I watch a movie or a TV show and like one of the actors in it, I always look them up later on the Internet Movie Data Base. I like seeing their birthday, where they're from, what else they've been in, if they are married or dating anyone, if they have kids, etc. etc. I think it's just because I am inherently interested in people, and different aspects of their lives. And aspects of celebrities' lives - though often in distorted ways - are out there on the internet, just waiting for me to find them.
When I studied abroad in Santiago, my parents came to visit me at one point. I asked my mom to bring me some gossip magazines. Feeling tired from their long flight, my parents went to sleep pretty early on their first night. I, on the other hand, stayed up late, wrapped in blankets (it was May, and quite cold being almost winter there), and caught up on months of celebrity gossip. After I was done reading US Weekly, Star, and In Touch, I gave them to C. so she could catch up too. At her birthday party a few weeks later, after we'd had the cake and sung Happy Birthday, one person found the magazines and soon everyone was gathered around, discussing, exclaiming,and savouring the link to American celebrity culture which wasn't present in Santiago. Looking back now, I definitely feel I've come a long way. But I still look back fondly on that first night with the blankets and the tabloids, and how, as sad as it may seem, I did get genuine pleasure out of reading those magazines.
The prominence of celebrity culture can also be found in unlikely places. In December 2006, while on a trip to New York, I had lunch at Cafe Fuego, a Cuban restaurant in the East Village (sadly now closed) that was owned by model (and also Halle Berry's then (but now ex, which I know thanks to Huffington Post!) boyfriend Gabriel Aubry. I had read online about the restaurant and how tacked to the bathroom wall were People and US Weekly magazine covers. Naturally I went to the bathroom to investigate, and sure enough there were 3 magazine covers - recent ones too, leading me to believe they were regularly changed. I still can't decide if I think that's funny and cool, or a bit tacky. Were they trying to make fun of celebrity culture? or embrace it? Probably a little of both, which is about where I am too.
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