You are quite right when you observe that the mechanics of celebrity are echoed in a way even among us everyday folks, who also construct “media images” in our dealings with others. This is a very interesting point, and to me one of the most interesting things about it is that many historians would argue that these sorts of machinations are unique to forms of person that arose around the same time as mass entertainment. If you think about it, we live in a situation in which it is both possible and accepted to produce elaborate semi-fictions as “who we are.” There are social arrangements in which there are severe limits on this kind of thing, in which it is thought dishonorable (and may be punishable) to pretend to be something other than what society says you are (like a serf, for example).

Great comment, thanks for participating.

I agree so much with what you say. Today one has to learn to differentiate between ‘media personality’ and ‘personality’. All that one knows of a media-persona is articulated, artificial, constructed. One has no actual experience with the person personified to base any conclusions on. All one can do is what you did, to pull out the facts and to ignore the rest as artifice.

On the other hand, don’t we all do this to some extent at least within our local relations – even to ourselves? Have you ever noticed that the person telling the ‘story’ is also the hero of the story, except in comical events. I don’t tell unflattering stories that reveal me to be a heel or sometimes stupid and dense. I omit certain things in telling my autobiographical details to others. Sometimes, I even lie to myself…

Mass media does the same thing on a “mass scale”. It selects what it presents based on it’s motivations. News has become no different.

Your last point about the transcendental aspect of ‘celebrity’ is a good one. Media creates false categories that have no existential basis, they are motivated fictions.

Thanks for a good post, Peter.