I heard a stand up comic on television once. She said how she absolutely admired Paris Hilton who proved once and for all that one did not have to be poor to be 'white trash'.A new psychology study, headed by Nathanael Fast of Stanford University in California, tries to explain why some stars continue to burn bright, long after their talent has faded -- if it ever was there to begin with. And the answer: people simply need something to talk about!
What exactly is Paris Hilton famous for? "Take Paris Hilton, somehow or other she became well known and now people are more likely to talk about her," Fast says. Prominent people stay popular for longer than they ought to because they serve as conversational fodder, which in turn drives more media coverage.
Mark Schaller, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, says, "It does provide an answer to the question of why fame is self-perpetuating, even when the famous person isn't doing anything fame-worthy anymore ... Catching an idea is not a whole lot different in some metaphorical way than catching a disease," he says.
Bottom line: people who talk about people basically have no life, and there are plenty of people in the world who are famous for being famous, but not necessarily for doing anything worthwhile.
Hmmm. Sounds familiar.
New Scientist
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