the cult of personality
Reality TV managed to create a new version of a mental illness.
Watching too much TV can drive you crazy. Literally. In the minds of some psychiatric patients, life is one big reality show and they're trapped in a fake world that's either an elaborate illusion of a movie studio or manipulated by TV producers. It's been dubbed the Truman Show delusion and it's a variation of paranoid and narcissistic disorders.
It seems perfectly reasonable that in a culture obsessed with celebrity, when someone's mental processes begin to break down, he or she imagines being a celebrity. Some psychologists even started wondering aloud if our obsession with all of those popular people on our shiny screens is causing some of these diagnoses. Their cautious colleagues say that the people afflicted with the delusion would've become psychotic anyway and it just so happens that their divorce with reality merged with pop culture.
This brings up an interesting question. When we have entire channels devoted to celebrity news and gossip and reality shows, wouldn't that eventually play tricks on someone's mind? Between the lineup of VH1, shows like Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight and celebrity blogs like Perez Hilton (the most visited blog on the web by the way) and TMZ, you can literally stalk your favorite celebrity and get e-mail alerts every time he or she has a bowel movement. For a while, if you had to get your celebrity gossip in a news digest format, you could turn to VH1's weekly collection of sleazy paparazzi photos and videos. The show died in just a few weeks, probably because celebrities howled and network executives received rocket fuel enemas from their vast legal teams.
Why are Americans so damn obsessed with celebrities? Why do we care? Why are the celebrities we follow entertainers? What does that say about us? And wouldn't this nonstop obsession with the rich and famous drive someone bonkers? What do you think?
