ROBIN PETERSON
Staff Writer
As the world continues to be turned upside down by turmoil in multiple countries, everyone in the U.S. is focused on something of the utmost importance: Shia LeBeouf has had an awful 2014.
First he is accused of plagiarism in a recent docudrama that he has produced. Then he put a bag over his head at an award show, saying that he is “no longer famous,” and the day before that he also tweeted it, because “hey, why not.” Now people are saying that the poor man needs help and love and support.
I agree that he does seem to have
problems and needs some kind of help, but that is none of our business. The amount of attention that we give celebrities validates them and makes them want to do these stupid stunts. Shia LeBeouf, for example, is becoming less relevant in our pop culture, hence the “I’m not famous anymore” tweet. Face and name recognition is normally how an actor such as Shia LeBeouf gets jobs. And because, there is apparently no such thing as bad press, he does stupid and insane publicity stunts in order to keep his name out there.
It is the same situation with other stars who are fading; for example, the still-twerking Miley Cyrus, Arianna Grande and her twitter fight with Paris Hilton, the Kim Kardashian and Kanye West drama and Amanda Bynes going “twitter crazy” last year. Again, they all have something in common: they are all-stars that are
losing their fan base due to lunacy. Or they haven’t had jobs or, at least, significant parts for years. And even when there is no actual celebrity meltdown, we still pay way too much attention to these otherwise normal people whose only job is to entertain us peasants and spend away loads of their money on sports cars and other extravagant things.
Now the big question that the regular people seem to ask themselves because, it would seem, actors and movie stars that just happen to be children are public property: “Why are these people going crazy and what should we do to stop them?” And the answer to that my friend, is that we simply can’t, we shouldn’t and, above all, we shouldn’t care. These celebrities are not important nor should they be, outside of their
individual work.
We forget often enough that they are people as well as celebrities and therefore are prone to the same types of emotions, thoughts and bits of rage and self-doubt that we all have from time to time. But the limelight they are placed in distracts us from this fact: The more attention we give to crazy celebrities, the more justification they have to do these things that bring our attention right back to them. In other words, just ignore them and see how fast their shining star fades away.
