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The Pace Chronicle
Stop Trying to Be Famous with his guitar. Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian became famous because they got defiled in front of a video camera. In comparison, they didn’t accomplish a goddamn thing. Interestingly, the increase in people wanting to be famous came right alongside the surge of so-called broken homes and kids being raised by single parents. The common denominator seems to be that young people who desperately want to be famous have a history of neglect and emotionally distant parents. It’s easy to understand how this neglect can transform into
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a need for unadulterated adoration from millions of fans. Despite that, attention from a sea of anonymous faces is a poor substitute for the love and attention that friends and family provide. What’s more, people who are already rich and famous tend to deal with more stress, addiction, and depression. This is because the public scrutinizes everything they do, and few things are more stressful than trying to live up to an unrealistic ideal held by others. Imagine the disappointment then, when these ideals are not met and thousands of people express disappointment in you. According to author and pro-
fessor Jib Fowles, celebrities are four times more likely to commit suicide than the average American. Many of us have seen our favorite musicians or actors slowly self-destruct due to depression and addiction. A crystalline example is the career of Eminem. Scour his lyrics and look at his history of painkiller abuse and tell me fame didn’t have a crushing effect on him. British actor and comedian Russell Brand, in a recent documentary about happiness, insists that fame “ain’t all that” and that he is not happy, despite having money and millions of fans. The
examples are many. Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and Eminem all of them have suffered in the public spotlight, quite clearly because of the intense pressure their fame puts on them. About a year ago I received a text message from a friend who proudly proclaimed she had been hanging out with the limousine driver for someone famous. “So?” I said. “He’s famous!” she replied. I repeated my question. She said, “You don’t get it? He’s famous! Don’t you know who he is?” I retorted that I don’t care. My friend was like a broken record, playing the same part again and again. He was famous and that was apparently great, just in and of itself. In class a few weeks back I
Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011
saw a girl sporting a pin on her backpack that simply said, “I Want To Be Famous.” My hairdresser automatically assumed that I would become famous for being a filmmaker. When will it stop? Gaining recognition for accomplishing something useful, like writing a bestseller, being a great politician, or curing cancer isn’t what I’m talking about. Fame as a by-product of significant achievements is something else, but just being famous is not something to strive for. Fame for the sake of it is a worthless goal, and all signs say it won’t make you happy. We could all be doing something better with our time, so let’s stop chasing fame.