Celebrity Tabloid Magazines/Shows

Last night I was laying in bed, wondering what today's Worthless was going to be.  The first thing that popped into my mind: Celebrities.  So I started writing some big "celebrities are worthless" blog post in my head, when I asked myself a question:

What is more worthless than the life of a celebrity?

The only answer I could think of: Magazines aimed at informing people/making people care about the lives of celebrities.

We've all seen celebrity trash before; in the checkout lanes at the store, on TV, all over the internet (each major browser/search engine site has a section dedicated solely to celebrity gossip) in both serious (E! Online) and snarky (Perez Hilton) formats.  In short, there is no paucity of sources for unimportant news about unimportant people.

I mean, let's be honest... these magazines are trash. All of them.  People, OK!, iN Touch, Star... suck suck suck suck.

Except for "Weekly World News".  WWN was awesome.  They had Bat Boy, Robotic Dick Cheney, and the Page 5 Girl.

Poor Bat Boy.  He always had that same stunned look on his face.

As bad as the magazines are, however, the TV shows might be even worse.  In the magazines, you'll sometimes have human interest stories about "regular" folks (Life After The Storm, Our Battle With Dyslexia, etc.).  These TV shows are wall-to-wall crap.  Does it honestly matter who was spotted canoodling at a trendy metropolitan hotspot?  Or which stunning Hollywood power couple is expecting?  Or who is wearing what to an awards show?  Or which of two celebrities wore the same outfit the best?  Do these things matter in anyones daily life?

Recently, though, there's been a trend emerging among the fame whore crowd: Ironic sarcasm.  These people fascinate/annoy the pants off of me.  Take, for example, a certain near-octogenarian and former talk show host/stand up comedienne whose name may or may not rhyme with Shmoan Shmivers... there apparently exists a television show that consists of her and a panel of other celebrities rating (but mostly mocking) the clothing worn by other celebrities.  And Ms. Shmivers is generally dressed like a throw pillow during said rating.  I don't care who you are, if you look like a human Bratz doll wrapped in drapes, you probably don't get to call anyone out on their choice of fashion.

Along these same lines, we find the "ambush tabloid" crowd. You all know the show... the one with the smarmy ex-lawyer who stands there with a cup of Starbucks and a dry erase marker, taking field reports (about what celebrities were seen where, or said what, or were with whom) from his camera-armed, unwashed miscreant army. Unwashed Miscreant 565624a will usually say something snide about a celebrity at which point the entire room will laugh, blissfully unaware of the tremendous irony to be found in mocking the same people who quite literally keep them employed.

I, however, don't receive pay from these people, so I'll mock away, completely justified and completely unironically.

I mean, tabloids and gossip shows gave us Paris and Kim and LC and Audrina and... if this isn't enough to make everyone hate them, what will be? Does the Editor of US Weekly have to burn down an orphanage?  Will Entertainment Tonight have to partake in ritualistic animal sacrifice? What more proof of worthlessness do you people need?

Now I understand completely the importance of escapism.  And mindless entertainment.  Believe me, I watch some dumb stuff.  But as soon as the program is over, I leave it at the door.  My wife is SUPER into these tabloids, too. (One of the first presents I ever bought her was a subscription to People) And she will cut you if you try to turn off the E! Channel when she's watching.  But there's a fine line between being entertained and being hopelessly wrapped up in a celebrity wedding. When people go from being fans to being sucked into the illusion that they're a part of these peoples' lives, it gets dangerous.  We get people trying to kill President Reagan or stalkers breaking into peoples' houses.

Or worse, we get people like this guy (language warning):

"SHE'S A HUMAN BEING! LEAVE BRITTNEY ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE"

Honestly, I don't think I've ever been that upset about anything in my life, let alone a pop star who is on the downward slope of her career.

Is this all to blame on celeb tabloids? No.  You can probably blame the internet, the 24-hour news cycle, and good old-fashioned crazy a lot of the time, but in our celebrity-obsessed culture, things like tabloids certainly don't help.

Eleven percent of voters even admit that celebrities had some sway over who they planned on voting for in the recent Presidential elections.

Now that's just plain crazy.

So join me in a salute... to celebrity tabloids, the bastard stepchild of news and entertainment!