Wild Celebrities
Paris Hilton is not a Role Model
By Daniel Muniz

Paris Hilton is not a role model. And an “all night partying heiress” is not a job title.

Even so there are millions of girls and young adult women who cannot get enough of the antics of Paris Hilton and her panty-less cohorts like Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan. In fact, popular culture is not only fascinated with young beautiful tarts who don’t wear underwear and who love to flash their bare privates to the cameras of the paparazzi, but our society has become obsessed with the indecent exposure and the raucous exploits of celebrities. Consequently, there are plenty of media outlets who are more than willing to provide coverage on what they are covering up.

In fact, hardly a day goes by without these flighty starlets hitting the newswires involving some kind of drama that includes revealing a bare body part or doing something nonsensical. Even an over-the-hill washed up tart like Anna Nicole Smith captured the media’s attention with her death in very tawdry circumstances.

What is it about these rich oversexed pop culture icons that are saturating the airwaves and flooding the Internet with graphic naked pictures and explicit sex videos of their frivolous exploits?

The media loves extremes because sensationalism generates enormous publicity. They know that sex sells and that nude photographs capture the attention of the mass mind. And the more outrageous an incident is, especially when there are pictures or video coverage of it, the more marketable it becomes to the public.

People want to see Paris Hilton in her panties and garters and they also want to see her wearing nothing at all and she knows it. Celebrities know that the stark reality is that popular culture wants to be titillated by the glitz and glamour; therefore they don’t mind participating in a scandal or two to give it to them. In fact, it is getting pretty difficult to define what a scandal really is because of all the outrageous stunts.

For instance, many people wondered what Britney Spears would do next after she purposely exposed her smoothly waxed privates to the paparazzi. After all, that was a pretty tough feat to top in the eyes of celebrity journalism.

The public certainly didn’t have to wait long to see her shave off the hair on her head in an attempt to make it match what was beneath her skirt. In fact, it was almost as if the head shaving episode was a sequel to her panty-less escapade.

Britney then she stunned Hollyweird shortly afterwards when she was photographed vandalizing ex-husband Kevin Federline’s car with a bald head. And of course it is not going to end. Give it time and more stuff is bound to happen.

Consequently, celebrity journalism is now a staple of the mainstream news wires.

There was a time that media was embarrassed to cover such news but today it doesn’t want to miss out on tabloid stories because they generate a huge amount of publicity even if it is about something stupid. But more to the point, the press has a lot to lose if doesn’t cover these trashy episodes. Although it is completely ludicrous for major media sources to actually cover Britney Spears apologizing to the public for not wearing any panties, the press could be pummeled by the likes of alternative news sources such as perezhilton.com and tmz.com if they don’t report it.

People want their trash and they are more than willing to go to somewhere else to get it. As a result, the press doesn’t want to be left out of these media sensations because they represent huge audiences.

However, there is a price to pay for garbage.

Trash isn’t cheap even though it may be free.

Our young children are constantly being bombarded by the antics of celebrities so it is no surprise that they are becoming more and more influenced by them. As a result, big business is getting involved because they smell an opportunity to make a lot of money by marketing new products to a huge untapped market. Clothing manufacturers and retailers are beginning to market sexy panties and lacy padded bras to girls as young as seven years old. Certain toymakers are now sexing up some of their toys so that it has sex appeal.

Consequently, kids are also adopting the bad attitudes from their favorite celebrities.

Although every generation has to deal with the influence that popular culture has on children, our society has entered a remarkably different era in that being outrageous is not enough to satisfy the appetite of the mass mind.

So what is really going to take in order for a celebrity to capture the spotlight this time around? And at what point will the media finally decide that enough is enough when it comes to tabloid stories? Or is that something that will never come to an end?

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