ce•leb•ri•ty

Pronunciation: (su-leb'ri-tē),
—n., —pl. -ties for 1.
1. a famous or well-known person.

In 1809, Lord Byron wrote the seminal work of his lifetime, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, and was catapulted into history as one of England's great satirists. English Bards... was written specifically in response to scathing reviews his previous works had received in a Scottish newspaper, and it was this antagonism that fueled the mischievous satyr within him. When this work of retribution was met with open appeal and huge success, Byron was overwhelmed. He is quoted in Memoranda from his Life, "I awoke one morning and found myself famous."

The only problem with being an instantly successful and celebrated satirist, in Byron's view, was that he was, ranked on par with Shelly and Keats, a Romantic poet.

The lesson here is that "celebrity" is out of our hands. It is, by it's very definition, mob-rule. Byron was a great poet, but it was his satire, encompassing a small fraction of his work, that represented the commercial success of his living years. Fame is hoisted upon celebrities by the non-famous, there's no better proof of that than the doughy kid from New Jersey (previously know as the "fat Dutch kid.") If you haven't already seen it, I suggest you crawl out of that spider-hole, shave your beard and take a look. This dude recorded a video of himself bobbing and jiggling like a like Star Jones Reynolds on the Tower of Terror, to the infectious beat of a Romanian pop song. This video somehow managed to make it onto the global ridicule circuit (a.k.a. the Internet) and it was an instant hit. I mean, even this doofus knew about it. This video has seen record downloads and emails (if such a thing can be accurately tracked) and even been featured on CNN, ABC and most recently, in the New York Times.

It's funny, it's cute, it speaks humanity's cross-cultural love of music ("All music is dance music," according to Afrika Bambaataa) and frankly, people like to make fun of people that do the same things we all do, but just don't have the forethought to keep it in front of the bathroom mirror. Celebrity, albeit minor, has been thrust upon this guy by the unwashed masses because that's how celebrity is obtained: through thrusting.

There are those that think that all celebrities are talentless, vapid, overpaid, self-centered, "it's time for my dog's acupuncture," shit-bags, just check out HOPE and Kid Protocol. For the most part, unfortunately, they would be right. One of the biggest reasons the resentment for these people is so palpable, is that their celebrity status is handed to them like Excalibur from the hand of the Lady of the Lake, and suddenly they become elitist, Scientology-believing, coke-sniffing, political activist assholes. For the most part, they seem to have forgotten that their fame is a gift from us, the plebians of the world. Without us buying their records, going to their concerts, watching their movies, or television shows, they'd be sucking mud like the rest of us. Of course, there are also those that, no matter what a celebrity does, his or her innocence will be shouted from the rooftops by some group of squish-head fanatics.

The concept of "celebrity" is so nebulous that it can hardly be defined more succinctly than "a well-know person." The things that draw the world's attention making that person a celebrity vary so greatly, they can rarely be fully understood, much less predicted. Just look at Paris Hilton and the amateur porn escapade that most people have never seen, but everyone knows about.

According to the NYT, the 19-year-old Gary Brolsma (fatty-fatty-boombalatty) is not too happy about all this attention his gelatin-like antics have received, and would like it if everyone just left him alone. Good luck with that one, Gary. According to Andy Warhol, you've still got about eight minutes left, I would suggest you enjoy them while you can. While taking out the garbage, Gary's grandfather, a Hungarian immigrant, was approached by a reporter and asked about his grandson's distaste for recent events, "I don't know what's wrong with him," he replied.