How I Am Becoming A Celebrity

Many people daydream about being famous rock stars or movie actors, but sometimes, similar desires are more subtle in their pursuit to achieve celebrity. I am planning on continuing my education and attending grad school for social work. While I don’t know of many famous social workers, something I would really love to do would be to work for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition to help with the selection process, working directly with the families as well as taking part in the physical labor. Now, I’m sure I can do this same kind of work with various other organizations throughout the US, however, I feel the deepest passion to pursue the work that is shown on TV. Perhaps this is because it may seem the most influential since it is broadcasted throughout the nation, or it may be my personal desire to become a celebrity.
There are other ways people become celebrities. Even on campus, many people work to obtain a name for him/herself. Is it for popularity? In our specific career fields, we all wish to be successful, and part of this success has to do with how well we are known among others inside our field and out. What is this need/desire to want to be known? Obviously, no one wants to be forgotten when alive and even so after they have died. Ironically, some people don’t achieve celebrity until they are deceased.

Much of people's longing for celebrity has to do specialness. Hal Niedzviecki writes, "More and more people want to be special and noticed, and we want to create bigger, better narratives, but our approach is to imitate established practices like televised wrestling" (8). The media has much to do with the growing need for celebrity. Mr. N continues by saying, "One must, always, be more than what one is, constantly reinventing, constantly announcing" (10). Like on television, if the same material is used for too long, people eventually change the channel and are no longer interested. Whether it be on television, as a student, as a son/daughter, as a club president, or as an employee, no one wants their channel to be changed. If a person is an employee who is a great worker but never goes out of his/her way to be noticed or to overachieve, he/she will never recieve the acknowledgment that is needed to make a person feel special. So, people pursue celebrity to feel special; thus, celebrity has a lot to do with a person's self-esteem.

In chapter 4 or Niedzviechi's work he writes about a therapist named Karyn Gordon. "Gordon lists the three essentials for positive self-esteem: (1)Stop blaming others for your problems; (2) start setting realistic goals, and (3) start seeking positive influences" (97). Gordon is essentially saying that people need to tak repsonsibility for themselves and for their happiness. The celebrity mindset is very distructive, becasue it leaves people thinking, "I could do that if I really wanted to." This is done as an attempt to maintain self-esteem --telling one's self that they are capable but yet they never get up and do something. It creates a false sense of achievement and leaves people with being okay where they are at. This can account for all that is wrong within our society, government, and nation; As long as we know we could rise above the social structure, we are fine not changing anything.

Acheiving celebrity has to do with social identity. Hewitt writes, Social identity is accomplished when announcements and placements coincide" (2007, 105). Celebrity cannot be achieved apart from social interactions and other people acknowledging a person as a celebrity or having potential to be one. So many people talk aout how they are sick and tired of hearing about Britney Spears, yet, according to Hewitt and symbolic interationists, she is still in the spotlight because we keep her there (we place her there). People continue to buy the People magazines with her picture on the cover, people tune in on television when there is a breaking story about her, and people continue to buy her music. This means that the people we call celebrities are a direct reflection of people in society.
What about those people who become famous after they have passed? This has been the case for many artists. Would this be an acception to Hewitt's statement? The announcement such artists were making when alive did not have placement. When dead, there was no actual announcement being made, yet there was placement. Perhaps this is because the absense of physical presence is not a requirement to making an announcement. The work itself (paintings and such) makes an announcement.