by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: October 07, 2009

It causes chuckles when the most steadfast, non television watching, self proclaimed deep thinker blurts out a set of facts about a celebrity scandal that indicate more interest than they ever admit to having. Everyone has a secret fascination with celebrity because every field, from the hardest of sciences to the silliest of endeavors, has it's celebrities. Nobel Prize winners are celebrities in their fields as well as in the general public estimation.

But the term "celebrity" is often confused with the term "famous". It is not that hard to become famous these days, but to gain fame from a positive and brilliant body of work in the arts, the sciences, or even politics, is what makes a person a celebrity. Their audiences celebrate these individuals because of their contributions to their lives and to the world. Being famous does not guarantee that the individual's actions or body of work is celebrated.

All of us who did not suffer from Polio celebrate Jonas Salk. All of us who had a major life experience at a live concert, from listening to a recording, or watching a film with an incredible performance by a group or individual, celebrate the individuals for their work.

We become interested in celebrated individuals because they are influential people in our lives. We become concerned about their lives and their well being, mainly because we would hate to lose the gifts that such talented and special people have to offer. We are concerned that the people in their lives are not causing negative distractions, leading the gifted individual down a destructive path, or misusing our source of fantastic accomplishment.

We do associate a person's behavior, beliefs, politics, and personal life with their work, and can lose respect or affection for those who engage in perceived bad behavior and misconduct in their personal and public lives. We gain respect for those who take their fame and wealth and use it to do good and charitable works. And most importantly, we pay attention to the effect that celebrities are having on impressionable young people.

If parents are not careful, the very young are easily led to unhealthy obsessions with all sorts of things, and a media saturation with celebrities lives, beyond their performances, provides an alarmingly comprehensive source of private information that previous generations of children were not exposed to.

Some individuals are mentally ill. They develop unhealthy obsessions with the details of celebrity lives. They are not even that interested in the work that has earned the celebrity. They just find easy targets and latch on emotionally to people who's every waking moment can be recorded and broadcast.

But most of us simply find certain celebrity news to be compelling storytelling about the process and progress of exceptional lives. Every truly celebrated performer works hard, has the spark of genius that only one in a million people have, and produces work that is the soundtrack or the event that we remember for the rest of our lives.

We do not just use these people for their work. We care about and are interested in their lives. If their celebrated lives deteriorate into a series of personal disasters and train wrecks, we grieve that whatever gifts they had may be lost forever, and they serve as cautionary tales for the rest of us who can ill afford to follow their paths in life.

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