[PenultimateManStanding]

The disgruntled who read this forum don't likely qualify as members of this cult but it's a pretty big deal out in the world. What do you really get when you are a celebrity: fame, money, recognition, adulation? The evidence is mixed but it does seem a lot like what happens to lottery winners. And what do the masses in admiring audience get? Well they seem to be after charismatic individuals to identify with. Maybe it's beauty or talent or quirky gook looks or who knows what. They devour celebrities, shower them with everything anyone could want and then execute them seems to be the general pattern.

[rogerhb]

We have cave-man brains, whacky things happen when you have cave-men watching TVs.

[PenultimateManStanding]

There's some deep stuff behind this, the love of images, beauty, charisma. The narcissism we feel to various degrees is what gives zest to what might otherwise be a drag. Islam, anyone?

[ashurbanipal]

I think the cult of celebrity functions in the same way that monarchy used to (well, in part, anyway). We know that not everyone can be rich; there's just not enough stuff in the world for everyone to have as much as Madonna or Tom Cruise. But by trading their privacy for those things, we all get to "participate" in the having of lots of things. For a moment or two, we can empathize with having millions of dollars at our disposal, and this provides an escape, however false, from the doldrums of our own lives.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ashurbanipal', ' ') there's just not enough stuff in the world for everyone to have as much as Madonna or Tom Cruise.

[SinisterBlueCat]

I think a lot has to do with the general loneliness and isolation that comes with modern society...the tribe, the family and the close neighborhoods are gone and with it the interpersonal relations that make us human. We NEED to have close relations, we are born to gossip... so in place of that we subsitute celebrities. the brain identifies celebrities as "friends" because it has seen the face so many times, it just figures it is some one well known personally...the identification part of the brain does not really differentiate between a live person and someone on TV

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SinisterBlueCat', ' ') We NEED to have close relations, we are born to gossip... so in place of that we subsitute celebrities. the brain identifies celebrities as "friends" because it has seen the face so many times, it just figures it is some one well known personally...the identification part of the brain does not really differentiate between a live person and someone on TV

[PenultimateManStanding]

Rush Limbaugh is a perfect case to look at to get some insight into the cult nature of the fame thing in modern media. He represents himself as a right wing paragon, upright for the laws and conservative values and staunch protagonist for the Republican Party. He defended strict rules for drug offenders and advocated tossing them all into prison. Behind the scenes he's a hustler, a sly entertainer, a drug addict himself who clearly violated all kinds of laws to feed his oxycontin addiction (which seems to have destroyed his hearing). What does he do now? Well, he's just an innocent victim of overzealous prosecutors, of course. The listening public accepts the new pose because they need their fix, too. They are hooked on listening to Rush.

[AdamB]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')
Jake Lloyd explains the conditions that allowed radical ideology and anti-American ideals to push America into decline