Here we go. I’m about to get the perfect, baseball-like rock, and throw my best Aroldis-Chapman-like 2-seam fastball right into the nearest glass wall. You ready?

Like a waxy red-delicious apple that falls on the supermarket floor, your ego, Hershal, may not appear bruised, but what does it really matter? It’s dead and flavourless inside – the sad result of the modern myopic pursuit of profit at the expense of true character and virtue.

Boom! Your ego, and my wall, shattered all at once. But now my wall is broken, and I feel cold and sad. Words hurt like 2-seam fastballs.

Let me rephrase my fire. One man’s trite musings are another man’s insight porn. And we, here at NFC, strive to be the very best pornographers we can be. Your first post, Hershal, was way too safe-for-work for my tastes. Of course, a true appreciation of the subtleties of fame requires a Steinbeck-esque tragedy epic set during the depression in the hills of Northern California. But (to continue this metaphor), we can still derive Cliffnote-climaxes from our 500 word posts, without having to set forth on a lifetime of love and true physical intimacy (in the hills of Northern California). What I’m trying to say, Hershal, is that your first post just didn’t ‘do it for me’.

Now on to your second, and definitely much more ‘NSFW’, post. Both of the categories you described: celebrity as ‘pathology’ and celebrity as ‘commodity’, teeter on the edge of tautology and science. I found the NPI questionnaire and completed it with a score of 13/40. I failed! US Celebrities scored a mean of 17.8 according to one study. The mean scores of American undergraduates seems to increase over time (from the 1980s to the mid 2000s), perhaps pointing to the rise of self-promotion on the internet, reality TV shows, and helicopter-parents that treat them as deities. Or does it? Like you alluded to, Academic publications have many flaws, and this particular ‘Inventory’ questionnaire is perhaps a first attempt at measuring ‘Narcissism’ that really just ends up begging-the-question (at least with the relation between narcissism and celebrity). For example, take the following statement pair (you are supposed to choose which of the two you identify with most):

1. I have a natural talent for influencing people.
2. I am not good at influencing people.

If you are a famous artist, you are, by definition, good at influencing people. You have succeeded at influencing some amount of people to watch your show, to listen to you music, or to purchase your merchandise. The same can be said (on a smaller scale) of local ‘celebrities’ who observe 200 likes on their Insta photo, and conclude the same thing. The ‘celebrity as commodity’ category you described is based on this fundamental property. So as a celebrity you either have to delude yourself into believing you’re nothing special, or you’re labeled a narcissist for correctly identifying what other people have already proven (i.e. you are good at influencing people, you like to be the centre of attention, etc.).

Celebrity as way to spur capitalism, while true, definitely also seems to be a part of the definition of being a celebrity. I like Bon Iver’s music. I buy Bon Iver’s merchandise. Justin Vernon does a commercial for, I don’t know, Snickers. I think, hey, Justin Vernon eats Snickers. Then I’m at the Gas station and have a sweet tooth and buy a Snickers because it makes me think of a cabin in Wisconsin.

But why should I care that Justin Vernon likes Snickers? Well, maybe I don’t care that Vernon or any other celebrity likes Snickers any more than you or Rachit like Snickers. But it makes sense for Mars to ask Vernon to endorse Snickers because a lot more people are familiar with him than you or Rachit. Again, not Rocket Science, simply a byproduct of being known by many people.

Perhaps we’re looking for some deeper reason to choose one action over another, and in Nietzsche’s Godless world, we deify celebrities like we used to deify monarchs. Or maybe that’s just a pornographic simplification that hides the banal, trite reality. Celebrities are people who are known by many people, and it is easier than ever to be known by many people and benefit from (or suffer due to) all of the associated side-effects.