Overthinking About Celebrity Worship

Magical Overthinkers

Amanda Montell & Studio71

Education, Science, Society & Culture

4.3 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2024

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From Taylor Swift's "Lavendergate" scandal to One Direction conspiracy theories colonizing adolescents' personalities, celebrity fandom appears more hallucinatory and brutal now than ever before... or are we overthinking it? A few stats about celebrity worship have been confirmed: In 2019, a Japanese study found that ~30 percent of adolescents aspired to emulate a media figure, as opposed to an IRL role model. A 2021 study measured that celebrity worship had increased dramatically since two decades prior. During times of both global and personal crisis, our culture has increasingly looked to celebrities not only to entertain us, but to save us, and as social media brings us "closer" to our favs than ever, performative online personas exacerbate the illusion of "mother" status. But cycles of celebrity worship and dethronement have grown hostile, and when the stakes of these obsessions range from Dolly Parton to Donald Trump, from Jane Fonda to Ronald Reagan, we have to ask: Is it healthy to elevate entertainers to such pedestals? Why have our expectations of pop stars gotten so high? And even though the dehumanization side of fame seems downright miserable, why do so many fans still crave a taste of it for themselves? New York Times opinion columnist Jessica Grose joins for a sparkling discussion of celebrity worship. - Join the "Magical Overthinkers Club" by following the pod on Instagram @magicaloverthinkers. - To access early, ad-free episodes and more, subscribe to the Magical Overthinkers Substack. - Pick up a hard copy of Amanda's book The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality, or listen to the audiobook. - Sources: Celebrity admiration vs. obsession: New study sheds light on stalking behaviors: https://bit.ly/4ftx0f7 When did we start taking famous people seriously?: https://nyti.ms/4dehd25 More sources in the end notes of The Age of Magical Overthinking, Chapter 1: "Are You My Mother Taylor Swift" To watch the podcast on YouTube: https://bit.ly/MagicalOverthinkersYouTube ; Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be amazing! You can text, DM, email, or send this link to a friend: https://bit.ly/MagicalOverthinkers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Magical Overthinkers podcast, a show for thought spiralers, exploring the subjects we can't stop overthinking about.
0:15.1	From narcissism to doom slang. If you can relate to the feeling that despite living in the information age,
0:23.5	the world only seems to be making less sense,
0:26.4	if you can connect to the idea that for some mysterious reason,
0:30.2	it just feels especially hard to exist as a human in the world right now,
0:34.7	then you're in the right place.
0:36.5	This podcast is here to soften the clash between our innate human mysticisms and the overwhelm
0:43.2	of this time to help us quiet the noise in our brains for a little, or even hear a melody in it.
0:49.5	I'm your host, Amanda Montel. Today, we're overthinking about celebrity worship.
1:00.7	Before we get into today's topic, I just wanted to remind you listeners that if you prefer to
1:05.7	watch your podcasts, full episodes of magical overthinkers are available on YouTube. I always record video when I do these episodes.
1:13.1	I record in a studio and sometimes at home.
1:15.6	And so if you'd like to watch these episodes, I will leave the link in our show notes.
1:19.6	I also wanted to mention that if you're enjoying magical overthinkers so far,
1:23.8	everyone who works on the show, myself included, would really appreciate it if you might consider
1:28.8	leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps the show, especially if you
1:34.7	leave five stars. Okay, on to overthinking about celebrity worship. One of the very first questions
1:41.9	that I set out to try and answer in my book, The Age of Magical Overthinking, had to do with the increase in celebrity fanaticism.
1:49.0	What a what is responsible for the increasingly intense cycles of celebrity worship and dethronement that we're seeing in society these days?
1:59.0	I spent months researching that topic, and I came to an
2:01.9	answer that I found pretty satisfying, but for some reason I cannot shake my fascination with this
2:07.8	subject. I just keep turning over the stone between my fingers. What is going on with celebrity
	...

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