I have a friend called Charlotte and she’s an English teacher, we’ve been friends on and off since we were in our teens and went to BYP – it was the smaller not so well know youth theatre group. Anyway, she was challenging her housemates/friends to do one of her assessments – I guess to make sure it was okay and all that jazz. Well I accepted the challenge and had meant to write it every night this week since about Wednesday and have still not done it – so here it goes (I’m supposed to be doing chores, and clearing the piles of magazine pages from my bed! I know blogging = procrastination!)
So the challenge is……”700 words or 2 hours writing a feature article explaining why you feel so strongly about a celebrity.”
I’m going to be incredibly boring. Growing up, my friends often had posters of their favourite bands blu-tacked or sellotaped to their bedroom walls. I had one friend who had magazine pages taped together to the extent that I don’t think I actually knew the colour of her bedroom walls. I had the odd few articles and things like that but there were that many.
I had a pink very girlie room until I was about 14, when it was redecorated and painted blue. Following the redecoration I had a few posters up but not that many. The biggest poster I had on my walls was of Elijah Wood as Frodo in Lord of The Rings, well it was that or Ian McKellen as Gandalf!
I did have a few smaller posters and pictures in an A3 picture frame on one wall which I tended to change round depending on who was my favourite band at the time. Even now there’s not one particular celebrity that I really like.
Occasionally I read the covers of the gossip magazines in the supermarket or flick through a copy of OK! or Hello while having my hair done at the hairdressers but I’d rather spend my money on books or craft magazines (especially when they come free with yarn, crochet or knitting kits, crochet hooks or knitting needles!)
I’m guessing that historically throughout time there’s always been a form of celebrity – I guess a local celebrity would have been someone that the whole village or town knew of, more than likely for bad reasons rather than good reasons. In Victorian times I’m guessing there were celebrities who you heard about in the newspapers or maybe went to see at the theatre for example but I think with the invention of television, cinema and later the internet and social media, the idea of celebrity has become more accessible and also quicker. If a celebrity is spotted in a particular restaurant, someone can tweet that they’ve seen them and before you know it the world knows that Brad Pitt had a Caesar Salad for lunch or something like that.
But with the growth of blogging and the internet, have we developed a new form of celebrity, not in like a Hollywood Movie Star level of celebrity but on a smaller scale (in a way – stick with me it makes sense in a minute!), for example, you write a blog and you walk around your local town – someone recognises you for that blog (this has happened only once or twice in Bedford but it happens lol). But how about on a bigger scale for example Vicky, Gala Darling, Elycia, Elsie or Miss Zoot. Okay so some of these names might not be known or might be celebrities in a way in a reduced section of society but to that section there is some form of common interest.
Then again these bloggers and those celebrities in the wider idea of what a celebrity is, are still human beings, I’ve met a handful of celebrities over the last few years and what surprises me each time is how 98% of them are so lovely and down to earth (Even when I’m getting tongue tied and a bit star struck! I’ve met one celebrity twice in the last few years and both times I’ve just about said hello and then not know what to talk about!) there is the percentage of celebrities who I’ve met and when I have met them they’ve been grumpy but it could be that they are having a bad day or something like that.
So do I have a favourite celebrity, no I don’t, there are ones I admire, there are bands and solo artists I’d happily go and see in concert in the blink of an eye, but I personally do think that the way the media treats celebrities and famous people is disgusting. If they put on some weight they comment, if they are having a tough time they comment or if they lose lots of weight they comment. I know I’m not innocent as I do read the covers of the magazines sometimes with more interest then I probably should have but at the same time I don’t tend to buy them.
There we go, that’s the word count stated – hopefully it works 🙂
