Everyone’s a Celebrity
Jade Goody, an ‘absolute nobody’, became one. Just a couple of weeks ago, Raoul Moat became one too - Britain watched as he rose from a ‘psychotic murdering thug’ to some kind of folkloric celebrity. But if you’re old enough, you too will remember when the word celebrity meant you had been blessed with one of three things: status, wealth or talent. None of these characteristics stood out in either Jade or Mr Moat, so what on earth is going on?
In 1968, it was the artist Andy Warhol who said, ‘In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.’ Though there was no way he could have known the particulars that would make his prediction come true, it is clear that he must have understood the might and influence of the media. You see, the seeds of celebrity culture were long being planted, but it would take several decades of cultivation and nurturing before their fruits would ripen and be harvested.
By the end of the last century, Britain had elected that it was pleased with many of the changes brought about by Margaret Thatcher’s long reign. It was under her premiership that poorer people first became much more able to emulate the ways of the wealthy on a significant scale. They were able to buy their own homes, drive nice cars, go to university, work in service industries and establish their own business’. Young entrepreneurs, in the form of yuppies and buppies, really began to show their vibrancy. But by 1997, it became clear that the British had tired of some aspects that 17 years of Conservatism had brought, and they needed to do something different again. That’s when the youngest prime minister in modern British politics was voted into Number 10 in the form of Tony Blair.
His youthful image was given much air-time, suggesting Britain was done with that craggy old bushy-eye-browed look of yesteryear. The media must have been remembering how well the nation had engaged with Princess Diana – she wasn’t the world’s most photographed woman merely because of the good works that made her hug AIDs patients; she was young and beautiful, and the nation had developed a real taste for youthful good looks. As image became important, the concept of the celebrity was tweaked again!
The new millennium was just around the corner, and when it arrived it brought with it a flash of technology that would revolutionize our culture. Suddenly, school children were giggling and looking askance as their elders confessed that they had had no computers in their classrooms, and, in fact, they’d never even heard of computers when they were children! In no time at all, millions of British homes housed a computer, or two. We began buying our children mobile phones, and game consoles with greatly improved graphic images, helping them play out their dreams of stardom on screens. The ipod was launched in 2001, precipitating the slow demise of the CD, barely before it had taken off (no doubt its fate, for having so viciously driven the stake through heart of vinyl). So many children have these £200 toys too – what an over-indulged generation!
It is also in this decade that we have seen Reality TV shows change our viewing tastes dramatically. Ratings suggest that Britain has degenerated to a nation that is quite happy to watch fame-hungry, often ‘talent-less’ people exposing their flaws on screen. We no longer appreciate the genuine creativity that was once typical of our programming. Big Brother, X Factor, Survivor, The Jerry Springer Show, Wife Swap…the list swamps our TVs and is endless!
Arguably, few would disagree with the claim that the World Wide Web has had the greatest impact on our cultural psyche. It has brought so much with it, namely You Tube, Face book, and all the other video-sharing technologies and social-networking sites. It has essentially cut out the middleman – if you have a song to sing, post it on You Tube; you never know who might be watching! And if your image is what sells, you won’t even have to sound perfect, not with stylistic devices like auto-tune: it worked for Britney Spears, why can’t it work for you? And as you twitter away on Face book, you never know which part of what you say might be considered ‘breaking news’ by some famous journalist who will most certainly be in touch! It was something similar that happened to Siobhan O’Dowd, the creator of the ‘RIP Raoul Moat You Legend’ page. Millions now know who Siobhan is - Andy Warhol you were a prophet!
It seems we live in an era where everyone is hungry for their big break, and our materialistic, consumerist culture has created opportunists among all of today’s generations. And even the youngest among us have been infected and picked up the celebrity bug. Talk to young children and ask them what they want to be when they grow up – they make a previous generation sound more than modest! You’ll find that relatively few are considering ‘mundane’ professions in medicine or education, let alone careers as a mechanic, bus driver or shopkeeper. Oh no, posterity will be overflowing with singers, dancers, rappers and footballers. Becoming a celebrity seems so easy, like some technological device, it’s fast and it’s chic.
Major advancements in technology combined with an inclination towards voyeurism have decreased the massive size of our world. We love flicking through those celebrity magazines – ‘Hello’, ‘Marie Claire’, ‘Now’, ‘OK’…We greet them gladly at supermarket tills, hairdressing salons and medical waiting rooms. We use them to tell us how we should dress, do our hair and what our preoccupations should be. In our attempt to mimic our idols, we and our young daughters are donned in a sexualized style and our boys in one that’s gangsterized.
Those on the fringes are wondering if our new government will do anything to harness this destructive trend. Perhaps it’s going along with the celebrity hysteria quite comfortably: we now have two Parties in power, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, so does that mean everyone’s a celebrity? Mr Cameron, an even younger prime minister, has defied the previous dictum of the Conservative goddess, Mrs Thatcher: there is a society after all, and not just the individual! In fact, he goes further and wants to build a bigger society where there is a ‘redistribution of power from elites in Whitehall to the man and the woman on the street.’ Everyone’s a celebrity…I feel it resonate - that thread of mass participation that runs through the fabric of this new celebrity culture. Despite Cameron’s disapproving remarks about Face book’s tribute to Raoul Moat, I fear the Government is not even conscious of the implications of celebrity culture as it gets on board and seems to be enjoying the ride.
The almost 40,000 tributes to Mr Moat are surely not the first to a rebel hero. We know the stories of Robin Hood, Bonnie and Clyde and Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke. So perhaps the real message speaks more about our desperation for something or someone to revere – the absence of a revolution or any leaders on the world’s socio-political landscape. No more Malcolm Xs or Ghandis to speak on behalf of the oppressed?! Maybe the new oppressed are those who get to peep into the lives of the rich and famous, knowing full well that they too deserve that same glory. And if that glory is celebrity, they’ll take what’s theirs, whatever the cost, and make sure that those like Jade and Raoul are never forgotten! But beware, hand-in-hand with this celebrity hysteria may well be the belief that anything goes, and once everything means anything, the word celebrity may take on a new meaning in the future – one who is self-obsessed, impressionable, disempowered and opportunistic. How many would want to be a celebrity then?
August 2010