Jun 05
When they make you a celebrity and don’t tell you the rules
Cats: Uncategorized|See today’s column here.дивани
Just ask Susan Boyle.
She went for the dream, but didn’t see the steaming locomotive of fame and celebrity coming her way. And when it hit, she wasn’t prepared for the dung heap cargo of media intrusion, paparazzi and nastiness.
Now she’s recovering from emotional exhaustion in a clinic.
Her story is a morality tale for our times.
(And please, Google, don’t index her name and put this post on your first page!)
June 5th, 2009 at 10:43 am
I could not agree more.
June 5th, 2009 at 10:49 am
“According to reports in the British newspapers, the tabloid photographers were taunting her when she blew a gasket and swore at them before the contest finals.”
This is the way I figure it and it’s pretty much my solution to everything, even though I don’t own one of these devices. We allow celebs to have a certain “Radius of Freedom” around themselves. If the Stalkerazzi come within say a five-point-five metres of the circle, a homeless person with a low-impact, fully-automatic paintball gun will let loose on them.
Realistically, the Stalkerazzi don’t need to come any closer than that, because they have cameras that have lenses that can take pictures from thousands of feet away, to capture celebs sunning themselves topless in the south of France. The celebs will not be hounded to the point of insanity, the homeless are gainfully employed, and dry cleaners and Laundromats are making huge business.
June 5th, 2009 at 11:56 am
I like it, Cormac. What are the stock options?
Usually i don’t have a lot of sympathy for celebrities. They make big dollar based on having fans, so that’s the price they pay.
Ms. Boyle on the other hand may not have been shooting for the stars. If not then I feel for her, but if she had her sights set on stardom…I guess it was all self inflicted.
June 5th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
The whole Susan Boyle saga is by turns inspiring, entertaining and tragic. My brother and his girlfriend were in the UK for the past three weeks and told me that we have no concept of what the media is like there. And we thought coverage of Jessica Simpson in unflattering jeans and a drugged-up Britney performing in her underwear were bad.
In a way, this helps to cement the Susan Boyle phenomenon in the collective consciousness of popular culture… although probably not for the right reasons. Will her remember her voice or her dowdy clothing? Her talent or her breakdown? The way she moved some people to tears or how she was shoved off her pedestal by the same people who placed her there?
It’s similar to Jon and Kate Plus 8… we love to love them, but we love to hate them even more. And even when I want to quit, I get a craving for just one more hit of fallen icon heroin.
June 5th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I’m of two minds about this. One one hand I feel sorry for Susan, but on the other hand, her future looks very rosy right now. I couldn’t handle a singing contract, but a book deal would be nice. She’s got it all.
June 6th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
The turnaround time on this is certainly enough to make your head spin. The world of celebrity is speeding up exponentially.
June 7th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Do kids still have access to Stink-Bombs? When I was a kid in the UK we used to go to the Joke Shop on Christmas Steps in Bristol and stock up on glass vial filled with the most fetid rotten egg-smelling yellow solution. Thrown into a public situation they were a room clearer – and OMFG if you got it on yourself – vomit-inducing. Soooooooo