Opinion Forum

I Don’t Care about LeBron James or Lindsay Lohan or…

September 21st, 2010

Boy am I glad that the media feeding frenzy over the ill-advised LeBron James/ESPN cluster@#&%, “The Decision,” is long past. It just demonstrated what we should have assumed all along, namely, that behind that façade of loyal and humble Cleveland homeboy was the usual narcissistic superstar athlete that we have come to expect these days. The clues were always there, of course, right in front of our eyes; the royal and religious nicknames (King James and the Chosen, the latter tattooed across James’s back like a billboard) and the third-person references (“I don’t think he ever cared about LeBron,” says LeBron).

But this post isn’t about LeBron James. It is about what I don’t care about, what we Americans seem to care about, and what I think we should really care about.

And let me make this very clear: I don’t care about LeBron James or Lindsay Lohan or Lady Gaga. And don’t even get me started on Snooki; at least the former three pop-culture icons have a talent for something. The reason why I don’t care about these four people, and the legion of other professional athletes, pop stars, celebrities, supermodels, actors, and the absolute lowest on the food chain, celebutantes who have no discernible reason for being famous (hello Kardashian sisters!), is that they are so phenomenally unimportant to our lives.

Okay, for you free-market types, I don’t blame them for taking advantage of the opportunities given to them by our popular culture; they are real entrepreneurs, filling a void in the marketplace with products — themselves — that many of our populace appear to want. And I will admit that they do boost the global economy to some small degree by generating ticket sales, advertising revenue, television ratings, magazine and tabloid sales, Web traffic, and don’t forget jobs, particularly for the assorted family and friends who comprise their all-important entourages.

It’s not like this absorption in the inconsequential is anything new. People up and down the socioeconomic and educational food chain have had a keen interest in the unimportant for centuries, even millennia, really for as long as we humans have had leisure time. This relationship between the citizenry and its idols is only more “in your face” now for the sheer frequency and intensity of exposure thanks to the explosion of new media in the last decade. In the past, there simply weren’t the means to become overly immersed in the immaterial. Now, between the Web, smartphones, twitter, RSS feeds, and the like, it’s possible to be connected to the insignificant almost every waking moment of every day.

But, really, what do any of these denizens of the “entertainment-industrial complex” bring to the table that makes them worthy of such widespread attention and adoration? Okay, LeBron James is a great basketball player, Lindsay Lohan seems to be a talented actress (when she isn’t in rehab or in trouble with the law), and, as for Snooki, she is a perpetual barely walking and barely talking train wreck in waiting. So, fine, watch a Cavs (oops, I mean Heat, sorry Cleveland) game, The Love Bug, or, if you really must, Jersey Shore, but do you really need to read, watch, talk, chat, text, post, and comment about it constantly?

Which raises the question: Why do so many care so much about so few who mean so little to our so busy lives?

Most people would say, they are, well, entertaining. Gosh, everyone has a right to spend their leisure time in whatever way they see fit. And, before I get accused of being one of those coastal intellectual elites, who I am to judge whether Beethoven is better than Jay-Z or Fellini is better than Atpow; to each his own. And I certainly have my own share of brain-dead entertainment attractions (I loved last summer’s GI Joe movie!). Perhaps it is just entertainment and this intense interest in the pointless doesn’t mean a thing. Heck, everyone needs to have a little escape periodically, even from the most interesting and meaningful life.

But the fascination that we have about the “celebusphere” seems far beyond just mere interest and entertainment. It isn’t just chatting it up around the water cooler at work for a few minutes a day. Instead, if you explore the web sites, blogs, chat rooms, and tabloids, it appears to be substantial chunks of people’s time. And I have friends who talk about American Idol or Top Chef as if it was the latest news out of Afghanistan or the upcoming elections, such was their level of investment and passion.

I have two concerns about this sort of preoccupation with the pointless. First, it worries me when people can’t find entertainment that has more immediate connection and value to their own lives. It would seem to me that entertainment that has such proximity would be more, well, entertaining. But maybe distance is the point, that with all that is happening in the world, the geopolitical unrest, economic crises, political warfare, environmental disasters, and other various and sundry tragedies and calamities, perhaps immersing ourselves in the triviata of popular culture is the equivalent of burying our heads in the sand; out of sight, out of mind. Hey, if we are powerless to do anything about what is happening to us, why even pay attention to it?

That question leads me to my second concern, that the 24/7 connection that people have with the unimportant prevents them from paying attention to what really matters in the world and, more importantly, to have an impact on what really matters. The reality is that there is a lot of stuff happening these days that needs our fullest attention and, furthermore, that we actually can do something about. But it requires an informed, invested, and energized citizenry to make the best decisions and to effect the most positive change. Just think what would happen if people devoted even half the time they spend on the inconsequential on that which is important and meaningful in their lives. Imagine the engagement and power we the people would have then.

(This article was also posted at Dr. Jim Taylor’s Blog.)

Articles written by Dr. Jim Taylor
Tags: culture, entertainment, Lebron James, Lindsay Lohan, narcissism, values
Categories: Arts, Life, Media | Comments (5) | Home

5 Responses to “I Don’t Care about LeBron James or Lindsay Lohan or…”

Dan Miller | September 21st, 2010 at 6:11 pm

I agree. However, I find at least as disconcerting the attention paid to celebrities’ views in areas outside their information/knowledge/expertise spheres. It didn’t start with Jane Fonda and it won’t end with Lady Gaga. Why do the media report their every utterance at every opportunity and why do/should we care about them? Surely, there are folks who have more to contribute but whose views they displace.

Tom Carter | September 21st, 2010 at 8:40 pm

I’m with you, Jim. The weirdest part of all this is, as you said, some of these people really do have talent of some sort, but others like Paris Hilton are nothing more than parasites who’ve never done anything useful.

And Dan, you’ve got it exactly right. Why does anyone listen to these people, talented or otherwise, when then pontificate on political issues? Most of the Hollywood types are poorly educated and very ill-informed. Why should anyone care what they think?

Dr. Jim Taylor | September 22nd, 2010 at 10:04 am

@Dan: I agree that celebrities are given “legitimate authority” (that’s the psychology phrase for credibility based on expertise) on issues for which they have no real, well, legitimate authority.

@Tom: I love it when those with differing viewpoints agree! Does that mean that I have conservative positions on this or
Dan has liberal positions or there are some things that cross ideological lines?

Dan Miller | September 22nd, 2010 at 11:33 am

Jim,

I don’t know anymore what the words “liberal” and “conservative” mean. I sort of like Christine O’Donnell, a somewhat rabid Roman Catholic but am an Agnostic. I try to “call ’em as I sees ’em” in light of the needs I perceive for paying more attention to the Constitution, minimal governmental interference in our lives and adequate national security. With those goals kept firmly in mind just about everything should work out pretty well.

Tom Carter | September 22nd, 2010 at 1:50 pm

Dan, I think it’s a little harder to define “liberal” and “conservative” than it used to be, but there’s still a difference. I might have trouble writing a cogent paragraph that explains it, but like Potter Stewart on a different but related subject, “I know it when I see it.”

I think a lot of liberals agree that we should pay attention to the Constitution, minimize government interference in our lives, and provide adequate national security. But, as usual, the devil is in the details, and we all define the details differently.