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Is our national fixation with such burning issues as Britney Spears' panty-free lifestyle simply an entertaining diversion from reality? Or are we hooked on celebrity gossip?
In his new book, Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America's Favorite Addiction (Houghton Mifflin, $23), author Jake Halpern argues that some people, particularly young girls, are literally addicted to celeb trivia. (This could explain why Paris Hilton was the most Googled name in 2006.)
"We become addicted to things that have a mood-altering effect -- drinking, pornography, chocolate," says the 31-year-old freelance journalist and NPR commentator.
So perusing Us Weekly is the equivalent of keeping a bottle of vodka in your desk drawer? Not quite.
Halpern's point is that celebrity gossip has become inescapable because of changes in the media. "It used to be neatly contained, but now it has metastasized," he says.
We've had a weakness for hearing about bad behavior among the powerful since Zeus was a serial adulterer. Today, however, Lindsay Lohan's nights out aren't confined to People magazine; they're on the Web and cable TV 24/7.
Halpern empathizes with the guilty pleasures that gossip provides. As a kid, he was hooked on Robin Leach's Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
His book probes various sociological aspects of fame. (If you are looking for dirt on the famous, be warned: Fame Junkies is not perez hilton.com.)
Rather, Halpern examines the desire to become famous, like an American Idol winner; the craving to get close to celebrities, either in reality or in one's fantasies; and the hunger to read about them and watch celeb-oriented TV. Halpern interviews journalists at Us Weekly, agents, paparazzi, fans, and child actors and models.
The book's most startling element is the results from a survey Halpern conducted of 653 middle-school students in the Rochester, N.Y., area:
*Given a choice of becoming the CEO of a major corporation, the president of Yale or Harvard, a Navy SEAL, a U.S. senator or "the personal assistant to a very famous singer or movie star," almost half of the girls -- 43.4% -- chose the assistant role.
*When given an option to become stronger, smarter, famous or beautiful, boys in the survey chose fame almost as often as intelligence, and girls chose it more often.
*The teens who regularly watch certain celebrity-oriented TV shows were more likely than others to believe that they themselves will be famous someday.
Despite his research, Halpern has not set himself up as an ayatollah calling for a fatwa on shows such as Access Hollywood: "I think the key is moderation."
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