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I call reading celebrity gossip "dessert reading" because it functions much like dessert and other kinds of comfort food. You eat it or read it, and you feel better. Right?
I have a degree in English and I am an avid reader of various genres but I do not consider myself above reading celebrity gossip. In fact I believe it can be an important and therapeutic vacation for the mind.

A friend of mine was picking up "Us" magazine so often at newsstands that her boyfriend insisted she breakdown and buy a subscription to the gossip magazine, in order to save money. This friend of mine is an intelligent educated individual with a respectable career and many intellectual and cultural interests. Despite popular belief, the reading of celebrity gossip (although admittedly not very intellectual) plays an important role in escaping from the chaos of everyday life. It seems our lives have become so crazy that we seek solace in reading about the lives of others that have even crazier lives than our own. If you feel like your life is spinning out of control, all you have to do is read an article on poor Lindsay Lohan and you rest easier knowing that at least someone's life is worse off. If that is the case, if we are reading celebrity gossip to make ourselves feel better about our own lives, then reading celebrity gossip is not the problem in itself but the symptom of a greater problem. I would be so bold to suggest that the greater problem is a collective sense of being overwhelmed with personal and societal problems that in turn make us feel hopeless. When we feel hopeless we no longer are compelled to actively pursue solving important problems and addressing crucial issues because we feel that they cannot be fixed or changed anyway. By reading celebrity gossip one is able to escape from deep emotional and intellectual commitments such as work and relationships and thereby create a therapeutic effect that prevents one from becoming overwhelmed with the pressures of modern life. Do we really care where Paris Hilton went shopping or the details of Britney Spears' custody battle? I believe the answer is yes, but only because we are either escaping our own lives or making ourselves feel better because somebody else's life is more complicated and confusing than our own.
I do believe that there's a strong boredom factor when it comes to treating celebrity gossip as well. Personally that's the only time that I read celebrity gossip but once again that is just another form of distraction. Whether it is a distraction from the boredom in your life, or the over stimulation in your life, celebrity gossip can be a beneficial means to keeping your mind distracted and providing an escape to an otherwise overwhelming life.
Until we are better able to deal with all of our own personal problems and the larger societal problems, people will continue craving celebrity gossip and use it to ease their symptoms of hopelessness. For some people celebrity gossip acts just the same way and probably more effectively than Prozac, and if it is socially acceptable for people to take medication into their bodies as a way to ease the stirrings of their minds, why not take celebrity gossip in if it functions similarly for some? On the other hand, whether or not overzealous and excessive media coverage is harmful to celebrities, though important, is a discussion for another article.

Learn more about this author, E.M. Costello.
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