Celebrity Worship

We all know that celebrity magazines are the literary equivalent of a late-night snack. We know it's wrong, and shameful, but we just can't help ourselves. I'd love to be able to sit here and take the intellectual high ground, dismissing them all as pure, unadulterated gutter tripe, but in truth I love them. There, I've said it now and it's too late to take it back.

The whole process involved in the buying and reading of these magazines is completely mad; it defies logic. Every week I promise myself I'll be strong, and stay away from them, but once I'm in the newsstand and I see them there up on the shelves, all glossy and new, I'm like a kid in a candy shop. But every week it's the same story. I buy the magazines, I flick through the pages and within a matter of minutes, I've scanned every photograph, and read every last word from cover to cover. Yes, we all love a juicy bit of gossip, but to be fed the same stories every week? As a kid, I remember throwing hissy fits any time my mom would try to feed me the same meal two days running; have my standards dropped somewhere along the way?

What's more, there doesn't ever seem to be anything of substance to actually sink your teeth into. These magazines - made up of little more than photographs and captions (and not particularly clever ones at that) – aren't all that dissimilar to children's picture books. But again, for some strange and unknown reason, although I'm totally aware of it on every level, I can't seem to hold on to this fact for very long.

This may well be far-fetched, but I believe there's something mystical and hypnotic about them. Only last week, I met up for coffee with a good friend of mine, who just happened to have two such celebrity magazines hidden in her conveniently oversized handbag. We sat down, and without saying a word, we each reached for a magazine, and started flicking the pages, transfixed.

So what is this unhealthy obsession we have with celebrities and "celebrity gossip"? Have our own lives really become so dull, so deeply uneventful that pictures of celebrities with unsightly sweat patches or badly coiffed hair become the highlight of our days? Or is it simply that these magazines provide us with a cheap and cheerful alternative to all the horrors in the world? With poverty, war, famine, and natural disasters rife all over the globe, do we reach for these magazines for some form of relief? I'd like to think so.

But what provides us with our daily escapism also feeds into some troubling trends. One of the scariest new phenomena, is the "everyone-loves-a-ditz" culture that's been creeping up on us slowly over the past few years. Watching a re-run of Newlyweds the other day (I won't even try to deny I enjoy it), I almost choked when, asked by her mother if she would like buffalo wings in a restaurant, Jessica Simpson replied "I don't eat buffalo." The blonde bombshell has also been quoted for saying "I think there's a difference between ditzy and dumb. Dumb is just not knowing. Ditzy is having the courage to ask!" This woman is one of America's Sweethearts, idolised by girls (and fully-grown women) all over the world, proving that stupid comments like that actually work in her favour, helping to re-enforce that ditzy, girl-next-door image she's been busy cultivating for the last few years. Rather than being branded dumb, celebrities like Jessica Simpson have built their whole persona around the idea that it's cute to be innocent, and naļve – the little-girl-lost act for the camera. And as a result, her, and those like her, have come to be seen as charming and endearing.

Another societal trend brought on by these magazines is that we can't seem to get enough of criticising celebrities. When they're healthy, and a normal-looking size 12, they're too fat, and when they're skinny, they're too skinny. Those who have plastic surgery are condemned, but those who try to age gracefully get snapped in unflattering poses and splattered all over the front pages.

But in the end, it's worth it. Yeah, you heard me, I said it's worth it. It's not about the magazines – or even the broader impact they have on society – it's about those precious moments, just before I reach into my purse, when these magazines are still full of promise. Maybe the whole reason we keep buying these magazines is because they're always the same. In an ever-changing world, where nothing stays still for more than a few minutes, these magazines are a constant and dependable source of comfort. They know what we like and we know what to expect of them. As long as we keep them in moderation – just like that midnight snack – as vices go, I'd say this one's pretty harmless.