The Galloping Horde of Famous

Despite what ITV would have us believe, the human brain can only be subjected to so much crap before it turns on itself in disgusted horror and begins to self-destruct.  After 34 years, I have reached this point, and I don’t believe I’m alone.

I feel bewildered at the supermarket checkout.  All I wanted was some milk and a cabbage, and suddenly I’m being slapped with blaring magazine headlines that shriek out unintelligible lines like

“MAX HAS SHAFTED US SAYS TOM”

“DANIELLE SLAMS CHANTELLE OVER RELATIONSHIP SLURS”

“JASMINE’S BEAUTIFUL – I’VE NEVER FELT THIS WAY ABOUT ANYONE”

Something at the back of my mind tells me I should know who these people are.  They’re clearly famous enough not to need surnames.  I turn to my wife to see if she knows who the hell Danielle or Max might be, and she looks equally blank.  This is worrying.  This is a woman who can recall exactly how much she paid for every single item in her wardrobe, who can close her eyes 20 seconds after walking into a crowded room and tell me what every woman is wearing, who remembers every single conversation we’ve ever had – and she doesn’t know who these vacant-eyed grinning flesh mannequins are.  On one level it’s reassuring; if she doesn’t know, what possible chance did I ever have?  I have trouble remembering why I’m halfway up the stairs.  But then comes that nagging fear again.  These people are on magazine covers – they must be famous, and the fact that I haven’t a clue probably means that my brain has given up.

It was all so much simpler a century ago.  The only famous people you had to remember and care about were the royals, a few writers, artists and the earliest movie stars.  Now we’re confronted with a galloping horde of so-called ‘famous’ folks – stars of film, music, sports, TV, politics, reality shows, the arts.  We try and keep up with them all, knowing all about their love lives, their haircuts, their antics, because to fall behind and fall out of touch with the latest fad, the newest meme, today’s internet star, is to face ridicule and exposure as a fuddy-duddy.  It doesn’t help that everyone courts the same kind of celebrity status, the endless striving to be cool.  Prince Harry is desperate to show that he’s just one of the lads (albeit a very rich and annoying one), and as for the Dalai Lama’s cringeworthy appearance as a judge on Masterchef Australia (“they ALL taste wonderful”), the less said the better.

Surely there’s only so many ‘famous’ faces you can see before you start to get mixed up?  I had a truly terrifying moment in the doctor’s waiting room recently, watching a TV with the sound off, when I couldn’t figure out why Rolf Harris was addressing the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis.  I notice with delight that I’m not the only one suffering from this glut of celebrity we’re pummelled with on a daily basis.  If a US reporter, whose job it is to interview celebrities, can’t tell the difference on-air between Samuel L. Jackson and Laurence Fishburne, I feel a little excused. 

My theory?  I think the government has something to do with all the reality shows that keep relentlessly farting out new ‘stars’.  I think they have a plan to crush us underneath such a weight of celebrity and confusion that we’ll vote for whichever candidate reminds us of our childhood TV memories.  Of course, if that was Sinn Féin’s plan, they've ballsed that one up royally.