August 2012
I generally don’t take any interest in celebrity gossip but the recent story about Kirsten Stewart’s affair with a married film director raised an eyebrow. Basically she was dating her co-star from the Twilight films but has recently admitted to cheating on him with the director of her new film. So let me get this straight; a couple who play a couple in a film are actually a couple in real life and she had an affair with a guy who was the director in her new film and whose wife played her mother in that film. Who says Hollywood isn’t incestuous?
We now have what appears to be a real life soap opera scenario going on. She is now apparently trying to win him back and has made numerous public apologies, lots of heart-felt pleas and has been getting a lot of media attention over it while her jilted lover Robert Pattinson has kept very quiet like his moody, pasty faced alter-ego was in those awful vampire films.
This is the sort of thing that would be resolved in private by normal people. It’s not like actors are so stupid they don’t know how to use a phone or write text messages. They don’t really need the tabloids to relay messages to each other. The whole saga is purely for publicity. Actors and pop stars basically rely on the public’s peculiar need for celebrity gossip and have to constantly dream up new and ingenious ways of keeping themselves in the public eye. Quite how the Twilight saga was so popular is something I’ll never understand but the chances of her new film being anywhere near as popular are highly unlikely. This “affair” is just a way of saying “I’m a stupid, insecure moron. Please watch my new film”.
You see it everywhere in the celebrity world. Katie Price is always making tabloid headlines with her constant marrying, divorcing, drunken nights out and ever-changing shape and size of her chest. For some bizarre reason people are actually interested. All she is effectively doing is sending a message saying “I’m a desperate, attention seeker with low self esteem, please buy this week’s copy of OK Magazine so I can get another face transplant.”
There is the constant need to change their image as well. Michael Jackson was probably the most notorious for this. He changed his image from that of a clean-cut, African American male to that of a pasty white middle aged woman with a Peter Pan complex and a fondness for young boys. Madonna is renowned for constantly “re-inventing” herself. I personally think if you have to re-invent your image and character that many times, you probably have deep-routed psychological issues and maybe have daddy issues as well.
We now have the strangeness of Lady Gaga to contend with. She takes odd to a different level. Anyone who walks around wearing coats made out of animal entrails and hats made out of ear wax should be incarcerated. Of course she isn’t really nuts. Her record company and team of image consultants probably just said “listen sweetheart you look like Madonna and your music is crap. You will only sell records if you act like a complete mental case”.
All this is a kind of perversion of what is done in the business world. A commercial company has to do something called “marketing” which involves getting their name and brand seen in such a way that convinces people to phone them up and buy their products and services. This article is technically marketing. Here I am basically saying “I am a grumpy individual who thinks the Twilight films are a dubious story involving a girl torn between necrophilia and bestiality. Please let me design you a website.” It won’t work and I guarantee it won’t generate any business whatsoever but the point is people read this drivel. Some people may find it amusing and pass it on to friends and acquaintances. More people are likely to find it rude and offensive and pass it on to a larger number of people in complaint. Either way it gets out into the public’s conscious.
Businesses also have to re-invent themselves so as to move with the times and keep ahead of the game. Again, this is something I’ve had to do a lot of. I use completely different software to do my job now. If I used the same rubbish I did ten years ago it would take me twice as long to do my job and cost the customer twice as much. If that were the case I’d lose all my customers. I also design things differently because people’s tastes change. If I designed a site the same way I did ten years ago I would lose all my customers. I have re-designed my numerous websites several times over the years because nobody likes looking at things that are old fashioned and out of date. This is why we don’t hear anything of Cliff Richard any more.
A few years ago I had a complete overhaul of my business website which included a completely new logo, colour scheme and theme. I often encourage customers to regularly update their websites to keep it looking fresh and to try and entice people to look at it. And because I want them to pay me more money.
I’ve also diversified and the focus has shifted somewhat over the years. With the likes of social networking having emerged recently, it’s important to take advantage of business opportunities that arise. With these stupid companies offering websites for free, it’s important to branch out into the world of hit men to assassinate them so they don’t put me out of business.
So obviously celebrities re-invent themselves to keep their image fresh and up to date. They spout bollocks on a regular basis to keep themselves in the news. They go from being pop stars to actors. They do all this so they can continue to appeal to the next generation of young and impressionable idiots. And it’s no different to what I do in business. Fair enough, comments about necrophilia and bestiality might mean my brand name spreads more like a disease but then viral marketing is very effective. It’s almost as effective as the celebrity virus which has now consumed 95 percent of the globe and will soon wipe out all intelligent life on this planet.
