Casey Sanders
The Fabulous Life of ... Celebs" Private Lives: Fabulous or Not, We Still Tune In
My study, completed for the Communication Honors Seminar, centers on the question, Why are people interested and ultimately drawn to information about the private lives of celebrities? In investigating this topic through qualitative interviews with people interested in celebrity, I have tried to open doors to larger concerns of what this obsession means to our culture After tracing the growth of celebrity culture in general, I provide a close reading of my subjects' responses, as they struggle to explain their own attractions to the everyday lives of celebrity. With reference to Joshua Gamson's Claims to Fame and other research, I discuss the surprisingly complex psychological appeal of celebrity to consumers.
