Celebrityation of Life

Icons may come and go, but irony will last forever.  

Despite Melissa Joan Hart's direst concerns, upon dropping Farrah Fawcett won't get the cover of People after all.

Yes, cruel fate has done what Jacklyn Smith, Kate Jackson, Cheryl Ladd, and Lee Majors' divorce lawyer never could. 

Upstaged Farrah.  

Farrah had her place in American pop culture, to be sure.  But even she could be outshone . . . at least by a certain someone who shot to stardom young, even hobnobbing with political bigwigs—only to have his career compromised by allegations of sexual misconduct with minor, which in turn set off a downward spiral that included financial mismanagement leading to foreclosure on a beloved home, and incoherent public behavior sparking suspicions of alcohol/substance abuse.

But who really cares which dead celeb is on the cover of People?  

Well, given the 3.75 million print copies in circulation, with up to 50 million website hits in a single a day, apparently more Americans than you can shake a glittery glove at.  

Why are People Who Need People so plentiful?  Because all those great literary tomes you can find at the checkout stand embody the two things we yearn for in the great nation of ours:  

1) the opportunity to be famous (witness the deep humiliations suffered by Reality TV celeb-wannabes just for their fifteen minutes of not yet voted off the island fame) 

2) any crumb of gossip evidencing how incredibly f*ed up and unhappy famous people are

Read all about it:  famous people have affairs, get divorced, do drugs, ruin their lives. And god love em, don't you wish you could too?  

Of course, regular non-famous people can do all those things, and they do, but not with all the glamor and attention of Britney Spears.  

Breaking news:  I just googled Britney Spears to see if I'd spelled her name correctly, and the first story to come up was about Britney twittering a memorial to Ed McMahon.  The second story was about Britney mourning Michael Jackson.  Apparently the reason we churn out new celebrities is so we can have someone emote over the death of the old celebrities.    

Because seriously, who ever even heard of Melissa Joan Hart until Farrah nearly dropped dead on her People parade?