In the 1960s pop artist Andy Warhol famously declared that one day everyone would have their 15 minutes of fame.
Since then Warhol’s prophecy has almost been fulfilled. Our TV screens are saturated with reality TV shows that give ordinary people the indiscriminate celebrity status he once predicted.
This modern cult of celebrity breeds its own values system. Celebrity draws its sustenance, not from what things are, but from how things seem to be. Appearance is what counts and making an impression means everything. No skill, talent or patient period of understudy is needed: all a person needs is to be larger than life. The only sin in the world of celebrity is to appear dull and ordinary or just not to appear at all. The world of celebrity builds its empire on a wafer-thin foundation of image, image, image.
