I snagged this link from Urban Bohemian’s del.icious links post of the day yesterday and I must say after reading the comment trail there (and contributing myself) I am so fucking fed up with the weight that celebrities have on what we say, do, eat, drink, wear, drive, listen to, who we fuck, what movies to see… I am tired of the deification of these people who have one or two talents above and beyond regular old people like you and me.
So, Beyonce can sing and is pretty… that does not make her a better human being than me, it does not make her worthy of dispensing advice to the masses, I don’t want to buy a cellphone with her name or “branding” either. She’s a regular person once you strip that voice and looks away what does she have? The same thing anyone other woman walking around does.
My favorite example of the deification of celebrities is… Oprah… or O as she seems to have ordained herself. I’ve tuned out of the cult of oprah several years ago and I’m quite glad of it. I can’t walk through the Barnes & Noble at work without seeing her ringing “endorsement” on several book covers. Precisely who the flying fuck is she that she can recommend what to read to the general public? What makes her a literary authority? Waits for it… that’s right NOTHING! So why are hordes of women slavishly devoted to what Oprah says to read, wear, eat, buy, go, do, the only thing thats missing is her dispensing marriage licenses and becoming St. Oprah of the Pretentious Women folk in Media.
I’m so sick of everything we do, buy, read, consume etc is somehow worthless unless a celebrity name is plastered all over it. Rachel Ray’s mug is now associated with Dunkin coffee, Lance Armstrong is all over NikeTown, U2 has an iPod edition, GAP ads have myriad celebrities in their ads, as if them wearing them for the couple hours it took to shoot the ad legitimizes the cool factor of GAP clothing… and the list goes on.
What ever happened to products standing on their own merits? What happened to commercials actually being about the product in the commercial and not some artsy bullshit that has nothing whatsoever to do with the product? I wish celebrities didnt hold so much bloody weight with what people buy, say and do. I wish people would think for themselves and stop being such godsdamned sheep about their consumer choices.
*sigh* I wish people would just think about what they endorse when they spend their money. Not buy because some celeb said so, or because its the latest miracle elixir to burn away fat that was touted on Oprah, Dr Phil, etc…
When you mentioned GAP this next comment gave me a grin because mainly the use of celebs is to distract people from the fact that thing X produced by companies A, B and C is still the same thing, they’re just trying to get you to buy theirs over anyone else’s.
But with GAP it’s even more funny since the same company is GAP, Banana Republic and Old Navy. They know people would be confused by multiple styles in a single store, so they split them up, charge wildly outrageous prices and people are satisfied with that.
Most people aren’t weird like me and wouldn’t go from one place to another tasting their coffees to compare them, they’ll just buy whichever is fronted by the personality they most admire.