Why Are We so Obsessed with Celebrities?
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Money in the 20s is a blog about personal finance, investing, the economy and business school. |
“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” — Tyler Durden, Fight Club
Why’s everyone so obsessed with celebrities? I turn on the news to see what’s going on in the world and I hear about some party that The Situation got wasted at. Why should I care about this? This isn’t news to me. I want to know what’s actually happening. When I care about partying or fun stuff I do it myself. I don’t need to hear how Chris Brown and Rihanna were at the same club. I wasn’t there dancing with Rihanna so why should I care?
Celebrity news often surprises me because it can be pretty random.
My new personal favorite piece of celebrity gossip is this one…
Katy Perry is being offered $3.1 million big ones for a book discussing here divorce.
Is that even possible? You shouldn’t be compensated for writing about your divorce, even though I realize that there’s likely a big market for this. I just can’t wrap my mind around the idea that someone will make millions to write about a divorce.
Where am I going with this?
I never understood the fascination with celebrities. Are our own lives so boring that we have to worry about others? I personally get annoyed of reading about trips and experiences, because I want my own experiences. I want to live my own life. I don’t care which celebrities hooked up over the weekend to be honest. I care about how I’m going to pay my bills and increase my own income.
How does this relate to personal finance in your 20s?
Many of us worry too much about what others have to say and think. As a result of this, we end up spending money on crap that we don’t need. Even worse, we get influenced to spend money that we don’t even have. This causes us to pick up major debt in our 20s that’s going to follow us for the next decade or so.
I feel that our priorities are all screwed up these days. When you’re in debt, you should be pushing to become debt-free. When you have no savings, you should be working towards beefing up your savings accounts. When your income sucks, you should be working towards increasing it.
What about your own life? Are you where you want to be in life? Do you have an emergency fund? Are you crushing your debt?
My suggestion is that you take this time that you spend on celerity gossip and devote it towards your own projects. An ex-girlfriend of mine would bring these celebrity gossip magazines everywhere we went. While I would blog or work on my school work, she would read about celebrities and I never understood this.
If we spent more time on our own finances and improving our situations, we would be much better off.
“The whole celebrity culture thing – I’m fascinated by, and repelled by, and yet I end up knowing about it.” — Anderson Cooper
