Pseudo-Events: The False Reality of Celebrities

Pseudo-Events: The False Reality
The beginning of Lady Gaga’s career, unbenowst to the majority, dedicated itself soley for fame culture commentary. When Lady Gaga released her widely acclaimed album “The Fame” in August 2008, she sold 12 million copies of an album based off of the whole concept of being in a culture obsessed with becoming the celebrity as the ultimate validation of living. The media, obsessed with Lady Gaga’s whole concept, absorbed her presence in the spotlight and made her into a massive worldwide star. She once told Rolling Stone, “I want people to walk around delusional about how great they can be — and then to fight so hard for it every day that the lie becomes the truth” (Lady Gaga). Her manipulation of the public is possible from the culture revolving around celebrities. Celebration of celebrity culture is perpetuated throughout media outlets and consumed by public masses. In the Empire of Illusion, Chris Hedges discusses celebrity culture and its underlying connections to pseudo-events, which are a form of mass media manipulation through a carefully crafted event. Celebrity culture and pseudo-events are often forces for economic gains through the deception of the public.
To fully discuss these topics, it is best to define what a celebrity and a psuedo-event is. The term ‘celebrity’ is often linked to ‘fame’, ‘stardom’, and ‘renown’. Development of mass media, during the twentieth century, including newpapers, radio, television, and now the Internet, gave rise to celebrity culture in the Western world. Media and publicity industries facilitate a growth of the ways the audience can consume celebrities after the creation, circulation, and promotion in the media (Drake and Miah). The celebrity, a represen...

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...ost valued skill is the ability to entertain, the world becomes a place where lies become true, where people can believe what they want to believe” (Hedges, 2009: 51). In a world where entertainment is more prominent, people can easily be misled if they simply choose to believe what they see or hear without a shred of doubt. All in all, money can be the motivational benefactor for sustaining pseudo-events through celebrity culture.
The deception of media consumers allows for the abuse of economic infrastructures of society. An obsession with celebrities’ lives passifies ordinary people in accepting the stratification of the elite businesses and the ordinary citizens. Though pseudo-events and celebrity worship may not be exactly complementary, the similarities of both leaves the public to be utterly vulnerable unless they begin to critically think for themselves.