I’ve admitted in these parts before that I subscribe to US Weekly. I also read my share of entertainment gossip online, although I’ve cut back on the number of celebrity sites I visit.I’m even considering giving the US Weekly subscription the old heave-ho. Part of the reason is that I’ve been around long enough to have read the same celebrity stories over and over again, and I’m kind of tired of them.
Here are the ones I’d like to see retired:
Sex tape scandals. I no longer raise an eyebrow over sex tapes. They neither strike me as shocking (unless, of course, a crime is being committed), nor do they make me feel sorry for the participants. I’m moved to neither defend nor deride them. The same goes for any semi-incriminating photographs. You mean someone who makes a living making movies was drunk once? In a bar?
Anything about babies. I’m at the point where I’m unable to care at all about any famous person who is either expecting a child or has just welcomed their first (or sixth!) baby. I now feel pretty much the same way I do when I see a pregnancy announcement on my Facebook news feed: Oh, that’s nice. I’ll probably carry on living my life as before. This goes double for any mention of how they lost weight “running around after the baby.” (You know, the baby that can’t walk yet?)
Advertising in disguise. I’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing an advertorial when I see one, and celebrity news is the worst culprit. There are several regular features in US Weekly alone, including “What’s in my Purse?” and “20 Things You Don’t Know About Me” that are just blatantly an excuse for the person to hawk whatever it is they’re selling. (I don’t go anywhere without this wacky new product that no one really needs!) I get it; many celebrities make as much, if not more, money on their spokesperson gigs, but that doesn’t mean I have to fall for it.
How they used to be nerds. I’m not going to touch the recent “Hot women pandering to nerds” debate, and I’m not specifically saying that I get to judge which celebrities are legitimate nerds and which are just trying to be more relatable. I’m just pretty sure it’s statistically impossible for so many people in Hollywood to have started out nerdy. Also, it’s much more common for female celebs to use this line as if they’re apologizing for their current status, that they’ve earned the right to be hot and successful now because they started off just like us.
A newly-famous person did normal-person things. Wow, really, someone who wasn’t born into fame and celebrity looked and acted normal when they were growing up? When someone is catapulted into fame, rather than scratching and clawing their way up over several years (see: internet fame, reality-TV fame), there are often pictures, video, and stories about them from before they were famous. Because, of course there are. It’s simply a more extreme version of what every 20-something discovers once they’re out of college and looking for a job: suddenly everything that’s on the Internet about you is a liability. As long as celebrity publications will pay for stories, people will come out of the woodwork with an awkward picture of someone famous.
There are others, of course, but these are the big ones that I’ve noticed. The problem is, once you’ve identified some celebrity story pet peeves and seek to avoid them, you find yourself skipping over half the content. Which really makes you take a hard look at why you’re reading any of it in the first place.
Photo: Getty
4 replies on “Celebrity Stories I’m Sick of Reading”
I don’t read any of the stories. I do however look at the pics for the fashions.
You subscribe to Us Magazine! Okay, Yikes! You won’t hate me, right but I have to tell you how I feel. I just have to really say I hate all of them. I cannot stand the celebrity culture that we’ve created which desperately makes celebrities out of anyone, talented or not, and then follows their every waking moment and reports it as “news”. When did this happen!?!?! The whole premise behind those magazines is reporting lies as the truth, pimping people and putting them on pedestals so that we can tear them down and make fun of them!!!!!
As if the negativity, gossiping and lies that they spread wasn’t bad enough, what’s worst is what you’re describing: Desensitization. I was kind of shocked when the episode of Real World revealed that one of its members had participated in a gay porn site for two years but failed to reveal it to his housemates. He said he wanted them to get to “know him” first and did some fast talking to explain away all the homophobic remarks he’d made during the show. What surprised me is not that he really thought no one would find out or that he blatantly lied about it, what surprised me is that when I looked on MTVs website to see what other people were saying, I read a whole bunch of “So what, he did gay porn for pay. Big deal. Next story.”
I actually think this story was featured in US Weekly and if I remember the way the story ran, it wasn’t even featured as a “scandal” it as just another story IMO, no big deal. (If it wasn’t a big deal, then why did he LIE about it and HIDE it, and why is he continuing to LIE about it?)
Anyway, honestly, I really want to cringe if I hear a person has done a sex tape and it’s gone viral.
I actually want to be happy to hear that someone is in love or having a baby, no matter who they are.
I want to continue to have the hives whenever an advertiser tries to sell me something in disguise. I want to have the same feeling I have about infomercials, a deep sense of disdain and disgust for how stupid they think I must be.
I want to also never be impressed that another human being, who is just like me, bought toothpaste or took their child to the park or wore a nice dress or got married . I don’t want the media moguls to brainwash me into thinking that things that are important are NOT important or to conversely start thinking that bullshit is a big deal.
Honestly, I hate the celebrity culture. I think to worship another human being and pander after them, looking at what they wear, who they’re dating, how much weight they’ve lost or gained is a complete waste of time. We continually “make” stars out of people with our reality t.v. shows and American Idol shows, and these magazines come along and pump them up to tear them down. Look at those teens from MTVs 16 and Pregnant, the fact that they are on the cover of US Weekly and the like makes me cringe. It’s like their mistakes are being celebrated. WTF!
And while I’m bitchin’ let me just say, if I see Kim Kardashian or her equally talent-less sisters on the cover of one more magazine I think I’ll just throw up. None of them have any talent to speak of and only one of them is even “pretty” IMO. I can think of a number of Kim Kardashians (pretty women with big asses) who live right here in my neighborhood and they’re not on the cover of some magazine!
Okay, end of rant.
Maybe it’s because as a journalist I have a not so good a relationship with all things commercial, but advertorials bug the hell out of me. As your example: “Nicole Richie wears this! Get a cheap version here!” Geddoff geddoff geddoff and take your minimal ‘this is a promotion’ with you too.
I don’t like weight loss stories. I am not anti-dieting, but good god I don’t want to hear about how Beyonce is on the Master Cleanse or whatever. Why perpetuate an unhealthy attitude towards bodies (and yes I know, that’s basically Hollywood’s M.O., but you know what I mean)?