Wake Up! You're Not Britney Spears

December 12, 2008

By Meghan Chavalier

Fame: "popular acclaim"

Wake up! You're not Britney Spears. For some reason many people are living in a fantasy world these days. The average person is not a celebrity, but most seem to think they are, from the way they act to the way they treat people.

The dumbing down of Americans. It's happening everyday, everywhere. The average person cannot live the lifestyle of a celebrity but many are certainly trying to.

The problem with the news media in our country today is that they've shoved so much celebrity crap down our throats for so many years that everyone wants to be famous. Why? I'm not sure. Did you actually see what happened to Britney Spears? How would you like to have your crash and burn moment played out in front of the whole world? To me, it's quite disturbing that anyone would take such an interest in watching someone do it. I felt horrible for her.

It's the sickening reality of what our country has come to. We like to watch people self-destruct because that's the way we're being conditioned by the media in general. Remember when Anna Nicole Smith died? CNN turned into a 24 hour Anna Nicole Smith is dead channel. It was like forget about the Iraq war and how many of our young women and men are dying everyday, let's talk about celebrities.

When did Hollywood become such an obsession? I lived in Hollywood for almost 8 years, and honestly, it's nothing like you see on television. In fact, the first time I went to Hollywood, I couldn't believe how different it was from what I thought it would be.

You see, people are just people after all. If we would stop being so concerned with what other people were doing we'd have alot more time to work on ourselves and actually make some changes that are important to the world.

I think it's perfectly fine to like your favorite musician, actor or actress, that's normal behavior. What's not normal is the way our news media is constantly cramming tabloid news into our lives. I'm way more concerned with the economy, gay rights, the Iraq War, starvation around the world and homelessness than I'll ever be with what Jennifer Aniston thinks about Angelina Jolie. I could care less.

What I'm saying is it's time to start opening our minds to the stories that really matter in the world and quit spending so much time on useless information that's getting us nowhere. We have to stop obsessing over celebrities and start obsessing over things that can make changes in our world. I think we could use a few, don't you?