Famous People are beginning to bother me

 I had no idea what to title this post

I spend a lot of my time browsing the internet, It's a beautiful thing, so many stories, so much life to learn about. But I am also increasingly feeling alienated with how little I know about celebrity culture. Or, to be truthfully honest, how little I care.

But there are moments when I just think to myself I have completely lost touch with reality. One such moment happened a week or so ago

I was checking on the news regarding the latest Covid updates when the name Nicki Minaj came up and how her expressing her opinions regarding the Covid vaccine were really damaging because she has a lot of influence.

I had never heard of Nicki Minaj

So I thought I'd better check this out. Am I so out of the loop that I'm missing someone's opinion that is so massive it's prompted a government official to mention her name

Turns out that Nicki Minaj does have a lot of twitter followers and has expressed an opinion on the Covid vaccine. But all was not as it seems. Her opinion reflects mostly my own and I'm sure millions of other people. 

I decided to get vaxxed ASAP, but I also done plenty of research and listened to what I personally felt were the best minds giving the best advice

But like most things. Minaj was horribly misquoted not only by a government official but also by the BBC!

I browse Twitter quite a lot. Yet I rarely click on what's trending because that's where the crazies hang out. I very nearly followed Nicki Minaj but I just couldn't, mostly because It would take me too long to work out what she was typing.

People of influence eh...

But that's only a small part of my problem

Celebrities & influencers are a massive part of our culture today. Add to the mix the usual stuff like Time magazine and it's lists of the 100 most influential people, the regular award shows, the usual crappy British reality shows that then have a celebrity version to really double down on the pain. It all just gets too much.

I confided in one of my closest friends that I am so out of touch with this modern reality that's been recreated it's almost worrying. His reassuring words "I'm 27 and I've never heard of most of these famous people either" gave me some hope at least.

Out of my own curiosity I checked out Time's most influential 100 and it was no surprise that I had never heard of most of them. There were also quite a number of people I had heard of, I just didn't know what they did.

So, I can now say that every one of them have influenced me because without them the above paragraph would never have existed (and neither would this one)

But then again, even in my younger days I could never quite understand peoples fascination with celebrity. I seem to recall a magazine called Hello paying a shedload of cash to David Beckham for exclusive pictures of his wedding to Victoria. At the time I thought to myself 

"Who the hell would be interested in seeing pictures of something like that" Apparently millions of people, how wrong I was.

Why do sponsors give millions of pounds/dollars to celebrities to advertise their products. I can appreciate the need for advertising your wares, but surely any old good looking person will do?

As much as I enjoyed Emma Raducanu's run in the recent US Open. It doesn't make me think "Hmmmmm Emma's wearing Nike, I must buy myself some really expensive Nike stuff" 

It may very well be really decent kit they're making. But I also know the only reason she's wearing it is because she's getting paid what I presume to be millions of dollars to wear it. Hardly an endorsement that has me reaching for my wallet.

But it must work, otherwise they wouldn't stump up sickeningly huge amounts of money just to have someone famous wear their stuff. I just haven't fathomed out how it works (I don't think I have a career ahead of me in advertising)

So, as more and more famous people are created on a daily basis with little or no talent whatsoever I expect my lacking in knowledge of who they are will only get worse over the coming couple of decades or so until everyone on the planet will have their 15 minutes of fame as Andy Warhol said. Apart from me, well me and my next door neighbour Dave, possibly.

I don't hate celebrity culture. I just don't understand the obsession