Take yesterday for instance. My friend Kristen was over. She's someone who is just as, if not more obsessed with celebrities than I am. She was recently in LA for a work event. When I asked her to tell me about the trip, she said she couldn't because it involved a lot of celebs.
She did tell me about a guy she met. Turns out that he appeared on The Sopranos for a season. I figured this was fair game for two reasons. First, I'd never heard of the guy and even when she showed me a pic online, he still didn't look familiar. Plus, if this was someone she might soon start dating, I had to talk to her about it! Soon we started doing imitations of our favorite Sopranos episodes (I do a mean impersonation of Adriana during Christopha's intervention) which led Kristen to search for the actual clips on YouTube while I made homemade pizzas in the kitchen.
But then she had to check out Popsugar.com, one of the celeb blogs I used to read regularly. Instantly, she was oohing and ahhing over photos of Michelle Williams at Heath Ledger's funeral. She even tried to get me to come over and see!
For those who don't know, Michelle is one of the celebs I like to read about most. I used to live on the same block as her and Heath and would see (or should I say, stalk?) them all the time. The day Heath died, I got so many text messages and emails, you would have thought that he was my ex-boyfriend! It took all my willpower to keep pounding pizza dough and not walk over to the computer, just to sneak a peek.
Watching movies has been hard, too. On Saturday night, Daniel and I watched Parenthood. When it started, I noticed Leaf Phoenix in the credits. I'd forgotten he was in the movie and informed Daniel that Leaf was really Joaquin Phoenix. At another point, I asked if the nerdy father with the brainiac daughter was the same guy from Honey I Shrunk the Kids. Then Daniel wondered aloud if Keanu Reeves made Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure before or after Parenthood. I also told Daniel that Steve Martin's wife in the movie is the woman we always see in Curb Your Enthusiasm, the one who is married to Ted Danson in real life. Soon I started wondering: Do comments such as these count as celeb talk? I'm still undecided.
Some might even take that question one step further by wondering if this very blog is counterproductive too. I've given up celebs, yet have I given them up entirely if I'm coming here every day to write about them? On that note, I'd have to say yes. I might mention a celeb's name here or there, but I'm only doing so to show how frequently they're inserted in my life, even as I try my best to avoid them.
I know there's no way I can completely escape celebs. Friends will still talk about them in front of me (and purposely try to tempt me!), news shows will still share updates on them, and I'll still see celebs regularly just by watching movies and TV shows.
The difference is that I'm choosing to not read and gossip about them anymore. I know I can't live in a bubble the next few weeks. I'll still watch TV and go see movies. But slowly, I'm training myself to care about these people less and less. That's gotta count for something, right?
2 comments:
I completely understand what you're going through! I'm actually NOT that celebrity obsessed, or rather wasn't, until I started my job. I'm an editor for Cosmo and now it's actually part of my job to read celeb blogs and stay current on things. I try stay as detached as possible, but it's incredible how it really sucks you in. We're sitting around tossing ideas about who to shoot for covers, etc., and it just naturally flows into things like "Oh no, not her, she's a bitch" or "she just got arrested last weekend" or "I think she's pregnant again." etc. The girls I work with can talk about this stuff for literally hours and there are some times when I just want to make them stop. It's pretty intense and impossible to get away from. Good luck to you! It's incredible what you're doing...
Alejandra: I feel your pain! I used to be one of those girls (although I usually got tired of talking about celebs after a few minutes or so -- I don't think even I could talk about it for hours!). Thanks for the well wishes. I'm actually enjoying the break from all the celeb nonsense a lot more than I expected. Hopefully I can keep this up, or at least lessen my interest a bit, once this experiment is over.
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