Media Fungus ….Talkin’ Trash…..The Obsession…
Don’t blame the paparazzi blame the audience

Britany Spears was caught with her pants down and unless you’ve been living under a rock somewhere on an uninhabited island, you know we mean that rather literally and not as a metaphor. So the girl went commando what do you care? Rosie O'Donnell is crass, ‘The Donald’ in his Rosie rebuttal has inexplicably insulted the overweight community in his rage and rants over the never shy and always outspoken Rosie. And while freedom of speech is a right within the free world, can we ask everyone to retract their claws and move on to more pertinent issues to rant and voice opinions over? Say famine, the atrocity of war crimes, child abuse, the ever expanding ozone, tax evasion, fraud, underhanded commerce, etc etc……..

….Celeb X divorced Celeb Y, Celeb B went on a crash diet, Celeb ‘whatever’ looks withered, bloated and prematurely old in non-digitally mastered photos….blah blah blah…..In short the list goes on, as we end up reading headline after headline and numerous blog-spots about………..well essentially ‘nothing’. In other words there are endless news reports about random callousness and other behavior that if sported by Jane and Tom next door would’ve gone on unheard.

The point is while everyone (as in the misrepresented celebrity) considers the paparazzi and tabloids, media fungus and while the has-beens of last year’s number one movie, song or ‘whatever’ rant and ramble about the pesky media hounds, yet secretly enjoy even crave the attention, (infamy is one kind ‘fame’ after all), the unquestionable fact is, the media whether ‘fungus’ or regular, work to inform the public and reality is the public has an insatiable appetite, obsession even with trash talk. And the media (of all variety) aims to please and for obvious reasons feature stories, gossip and tidbits people want to hear and know about.

Swarming issues of invasion of privacy, character defamation, pending lawsuits and so forth aside, there is entirely too much air time and ink wasted in the media dedicated to stories featured about famous cat fights, reckless partying, over-bleached famous tresses and much more to appease our guilty pleasures in reading and watching nosy tidbits that are much to do about nothing.

So yeas while there are countless commendable celebrity feats to highlight and idolize, like Oprah’s new school in Africa, there is feeble, half minute mentions of the many praiseworthy stories out there in contrast to the many minutes, hours even of wasted brain cells allotted to stories that aren’t stories at all and popularity over bogus.

While the world still battles and crumbles with issues of pollution, power and human rights and justice for all, we the readers and broadcast audience alike apparently still can’t contain our appetite for gossip and find ourselves picking up a tabloid at the checkout counter and flipping the channel to entertainment gossip just as we pick up the daily newspaper or watch the evening news (hopefully).

Much like the campaign against animal poaching or the sale of fur, it must be said that “if the buying stops……” than so does the trash talk focus. To that end perhaps 07’ is the year when we let pop princesses and real-estate tycoons alone and redirect guilty pleasures of trash talk and focus on issues that matter and influence the world today. Because isn’t it time we put our energy to good use and let the celebrity front be famous for their jobs rather than personal lives?

While we obsess about abominable fashion senses of celeb XYZ or the outrageous cribs money can buy, there are homeless hungry people out there, who are wondering why there isn’t a ‘frenzy’ over issues spawning their plight and why time and energy is wasted poking fun and gossiping rather than helping!

Sam@stylinzine.com

www.stylinzine.com