Here's my theory: People (maybe women more than men, but men too) have a need to be a part of a social group and engage in all the drama and back-and-forth of that group. The need is larger than real life can provide, so people find The ancient Greeks got a 2 in 1 with another human need and expressed this through their Gods who were always living some drama with each other. Modern humans don't have the Greek pantheon. They don't live in large enough groups to satisfy all their monkey drama needs. So people turned to the only other people the know personal information about - celebrities - to fill this social need void. On some primal level, all the gossip makes people think they "know" the celebs, and since they have never had a negative personal encounter with the famous people they subconsciously put them into the category of "friends", and follow the back and forth and drama of these celebrities much like monkeys navigating the social hierarchy in a communal environment, or ancient Greeks telling stories about the warring gods. It is a masturbatory surrogate social life for modern disconnected humans who don't even realize they have a need for human interaction that isn't filled. In other words, these celebrities satisfy the exact need that makes people want to gossip about each other in normal human social groups, and it has the added benefit of being distant enough that there is no possibility of being drawn in through blow-back. tl;dr I think these famous people are surrogate replacements for friends, and people satisfy a human social need by following their lives and living vicariously through them. I think to the people who follow the celebrities, it is like professional wrestling - it doesn't matter whether it is real or not, as long as people are able to suspend disbelief long enough to emotionally "rub one out" figuratively speaking.
Most of the posters here don't judge what players do on their own time, but they do care to know what happend, if the info is available. That's the difference. A lot of people don't go looking for this info, whether it's for an athlete or actor, but if it's there, most will check it out. There's just more shows and websites devoted to actors' lives than athletes. If we had a TMZ-like show for these Rockets and the NBA, it would be HUGE around here.
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A-list stars play up the regal, artistic integrity angle. But they're over in Italy and Japan doing commercials for engine oil, dog food, or whatever else they get paid mad money to do. They are selling an act, one way or another. That's the business, but the general audience buy it too easily as reality.
Except there's a slight difference between the girls in SoCal and the passed out soccer moms you be dry humping. Just slightly.
Our culture's obsession with the entertainment industry is pathetic. Even worse, it's spilled over into politics, where the GOP is perfecting style of substance, such as Palin getting her own reality show.
People like Rocket River are beta males. Their beta urges and need to submit to a dominant authority drive them towards wondering what everyone else is doing while they sit on their ass all day. My cake thick, I live the life Eatin' crab, watching b****es shake **** all night I make the big moves, do the big things
i barely believe my friends' lives are as honky dory as they make it seem, so i'm less inclined to believe the perception of a celebrity. doesn't matter anyways because i don't care what their real lives are. i only care that they make a great product.
I agree with most of the other posters in saying that I mostly care about the on-field product, if anything at all (what any athlete or celebrity does with their personal life is of little concern to me). Big reason why, most of them are entertainers, first and foremost. So in reality, why should anyone expect them to be any type of hero; savior of social grace or persuasion; tragic figure; a type of wizard that can help the unsophisticated/not too knowledgeable masses; or etc. When in reality, they are still mortal in most of their talents and attributes. To even say talent might even be stretch for some; channeling Kim Kardashian; the Gosselins; Duggars; most reality stars from Bravo-MTV-Vh1-BET; or pop singer who is not a great singer or lyricist by any stretch of imagination. In previous centuries, most celebrities' occupations are no different than a circus clown; a run-of-the mill theater actor; the mime or gladiators fighting in a ring (sports). During many of those centuries, most of those persons were almost nowhere near the prominence of a modern day star (even the best or most well-known ones). Take a mediocre actress and place her in 12th or 13th century, she would probably only be a rich man's wife or mistress at best, maybe some peasant working with a shoe peddler or on a farm, even with her beauty. What happened with entertainment is a group of people slap themselves in the face and said, "Well, we could make alot of money from making an industry (studio system) out of entertainment .... same way with sports." Most forms of entertainment were reserved locally or regional, while sports was also local, region or something you did in college (like acting) or school or for recreation. Though, once the industry ... the studio system started to take afoot in the world and became billion dollar empires that gave the world massive number of stars and ... slightly decreased unemployment. People started to see stars in their eyes in modern culture 1930s-present, where people actually made it a goal in life to become famous or imitate their favorite celebrity. Sadly, only a few have been able to do that, the exceptionally talented or the exceptional lucky and desperate. Everyone wanted to become the next "big thing" or the next (insert a famous celebrity or athlete/famous). The kind of I'm going to be my own person spirit ... or something that nature of independence sort of died. History and time has way more failures and people who did nothing significance (in entertainment sense) in their life than someone who even did something remotely recognizable.
