"Oh my GOD! She's a monster! Ahhh! Ladieeeees!' Around the room, starting with those closest then flowing like an aural Mexican wave towards the furthest regions of the room, identical wails of glee break out in cacophonic return. This is followed by a mad rush of half Primark, half designer-clad women, snorting with joy as they stumble across the room as fast as their knockoff Louboutins will allow, to the offending computer screen on which is pictured a thing so ghastly, so repugnant, that it remains to be seen if these women will ever recover. Staring out from the monitor, with a confident smile on her face, is a size fourteen woman wearing, God help us, a bikini.
Wait what?
Welcome to the most shallow and vindictive place on earth; the office of the celebrity gossip mag.
I was recently offered work experience at one of the major celebrity gossip magazines, and against my better judgement, going with the 'all experience is worthy' train off thought, I took it.
HUGE mistake.
Not only did I learn absolutely nothing at all, save the exact fat content the editor will accept in her lunch (17 grams since you ask), but I came out of the experience thoroughly depressed, incredibly angry and severely worried about the state of humanity and their obsession with celebrity.
The curiosity of the general public with members of society who hold a high profile is not a new concept. Ever since newspapers were invented, society columns have outlined the hilarious and outrageous high-jinks of the rich and famous. And the public eat it up because, well let's face it; whereas we're probably slumped on the couch watching T4, they're far more likely to be snogging a model on a yacht in Bora Bora, I know which one I'd choose. However in recent years, the nation's obsession with celebrity has entered an entirely new and almost chilling phase which shows no sign of retiring.
Heat Magazine, the publication that paid a large part in the rise of 'the celebrity', launched in 1999 and was one of media giant Emap's least successful publications with a circulation of less than 100,000. The public at this time simply did not give a monkeys as to the eating habits, family members, pets or rubbish bin contents of a particular celeb, it was of no consequence. The few huge A-list stars whose lives were covered by the media seemed so far away from reality that their lives were more like fiction; impossible for the average person to draw a connection with. But with the millennium came irreversible changes to our culture that helped to bestow the curse of celebrity forever upon us, altering Heat's fortune and securing the future of hundreds of copycat publications.
The main catalyst for the celebrity revolution was a disdainful programme which first hit UK screens in the summer of 2000. Big Brother changed the face of not only television,
but the way we view culture as a whole. It was the show that spawned reality TV; giving people with little or no talent high profile exposure, and the public adored it. These brand new celebrities were everyday characters just like them; they hadn't been trained by PR agents to carefully conceal their private life. They were a breath of fresh air that gave ordinary members of the public a box to stand on from which to see over that fourth wall which separated the real world from the world of celebdom-an existence they could previously only dream about; it made the life of the rich and famous into something attainable. By 2006, during Big Brother 7, Heat was selling magazines by record breaking numbers, almost 700,000 per week.
If Big Brother brought the masses in, then a trivial-sounding feature, 'Celebs without Makeup' that pioneered in gossip magazines in the early part of the millennium, is responsible for making sure they stuck. The idea that Cameron Diaz had (gasp) acne scars under all that slap took her and her fellow Hollywood chums off their golden pedestals and back down to earth with a very satisfying thump, stripping them of their divine status. No longer perfect deities, for here was evidence they were but mere mortals, they became worthy of our judgement, whether it be to mock and ridicule or to sympathize with and support.
Either way an intense scrutiny of their life was needed. And lo and behold, the magazines began to sell.
By and large, the celeb gossip empire came to have influence. Any publication with a certain readership is blessed to play a part in shaping people's opinions on the subjects about which they write. However, the gossip mags have abused that power and are well on their way to creating a generation of women who are unable to see through the inane material that has come to replace newspapers and books, and who are to suffer a lifetime of insecurity and little self-worth.
The poor bikini-clad woman from the computer screen earlier on was a reader who had sent her picture in to take part in a dieting programme run by our magazine. Although this particular publication will be remembered as having been a support in aiding this woman on her quest to achieve her 'goal weight', (a weight far too low, thanks to the veneration of the 7 stone Cheryl Cole), on the inside, in the safety of the office, she was being cruelly mocked.
This is an individual who subconsciously trusts this publication, as perhaps her main form of media, to help her navigate the twists and pitfalls of this difficult life we lead. By instilling in women a religion of celebrities, dieting and beauty is to repeatedly mock their lifestyles; dangling a life they can never achieve with constant reminders that they are never good enough. Celebrity mags are breeding a generation of celebrity worshippers, a new religion with a cruel God who scorns its subjects. Forget Mormonism, Celebism is the fastest growing, most influential religion in the world.
Examples of this cruel divinity are self-evident in any of these magazines. For instance, in a recent issue of one such publication there was an advert for readers to write in with their real-life stories. The ad boasted a reward of '£750 for your stories,' written gaudy letters, a highly significant amount for much of the readership, with pictures of previous real-lifers claiming '[This magazine] never made me feel judged.' And 'It was a safe place to tell my story.' Please! Everyone knows the real-life section is only there to pass judgement on the single mum who has no idea who the fathers of her thirteen children are, or the builder that moonlights as a drag queen.
I am aware that people are not forced to sell their stories but with celebrities gushing their 'secrets' left, right and centre in the rest of the magazine it does pose the question that if the Victoria Beckham's and the Kerry Katona's of the world can make money in this manner, why can't the readers?
The answer is because these people, the Jordan's and the Jodie Marsh's, have sold their lives as commerce to the industry and the price they've paid is worth far more than any money they've acquired. One pre-Christmas issue had a front-cover showing cancer victim Jade Goody clutching her kids with a headline that screamed, 'My Kids Don't Know I'll be Dead by Christmas.' If there is any amount of money that makes it worth your children reading that then I clearly can't count high enough.
Thanks to this spread of Celebism, an army of clones with a thirst for all things celebrity and not much else has been spawned. Just check out the comments pages on heatworld.com; all of them a mile long, full of impassioned debates concerning nothing but a trivial story about Paris Hilton's sex life, women now seem content with this the shallowest form journalism being their main mode of media.
This is entirely unacceptable. It is a media that patronizes their intelligence, suggesting that there is nothing more in this life that is relevant to them as females than clothes, make-up and the insatiably boring lives of these 'celebrities'. Surely women deserve better than magazines containing features such as 'The News (With the Boring Bits Cut Out!)'
Unfortunately with recent shows such as the X Factor breaking viewing records it looks like the world of
Celebrity is here to stay. Save for a few backlashes over extreme content, for instance Heat's distasteful decision to print a sticker concerning Jordan's severely disabled son that read 'Harvey Wants to Eat Me!' which was branded 'the lowest point in British journalism,' by The Times, there is very little to be found on the internet in the way of criticism of the appalling message that these magazines promote.
It seems even the writers of these magazines, the brains behind the movement, who you'd assume would be laughing all the way to the bank, are just as susceptible as you or I. When I jokingly pointed out the comedic aspect of Jordan possessing two files solely about her in the office of the magazine I was at, one for relationships, children and health, and one for her body, career and style, the writer I was with turned around to me very slowly with a confused and slightly annoyed look on her face and explained to me, as you would a child; 'well of course we would, Jordan is a very, very important person to us.'
I'm officially terrified.
