We already know the common desire to be rich and all that. Under capitalism, you can potentially become a rich business owner who lives off the work of others, rare as it may be. But even though it’s still significantly more realistic than what I am going to talk about, it’s boring and you would usually just get millions of dollars and live quietly and out of the publuc eye.
But what about the celebrities? If anything, it’s even easier to desire to be one. These people often do stuff that are actually interesting: some are business tycoons, sure, but you also see a lot of TV/internet/radio/etc. personalities, actors, artists, musicians, film directors, etc. And many of them gain even more wealth even faster than the example in the first paragraph.
Yet the majority of people who try to follow their path are broke and/or have to work a second job just to survive.
Imagine how many people dream of being able to create amazing works of art such as songs, movies, paintings, etc. and to gain at least some recognition for it, whether it is big or small, but will never (or will barely) get the opportunity. The capitalist class does not find them useful enough to be anything more than a poor wage slave, not a rich one.
It’s as if celebrities just exist as pawns of the capitalist class to convince the working class that their dreams can still be achieved under capitalism, when that is simply not a reality.
I don’t think celebrities will cease to exist under socialism, and they certainly didn’t in past/present socialist societies, but at least it will be far more meritocratic and the overall desire to become a celebrity will go down anyway.
What are your thoughts?
I think the celebrity culture, or more specifically current celebrity culture is another attempt of capitalism at ganing popularity by repackaging “american dream” - that you, me and everyone else can be successful, can rise to the top, you just need to work hard.
In reality of course, there is basically no possibility to join the capitalist elite if you’re not already part of it. Therefore it was altered to become the “new elite”, a celebrity, in reality is entirely dependant on those who are already in power - capitalists. Celebrities are not the elites themselves, they rise, prosper and fall entirely on the beck and call of the capitalist class, and as such they naturally have to show 100% servilism of that class. And you can notice that this is concurrent to the real people in power slowly backing from the limelight position they used to have as “sharks of industry” more into the shadow, with few exceptions like Musk.
It’s modern Cinderella show to woo the working class and deliver them copious amount of opium in the process.
This. And the problem that most celebs come from the ruling class before they begin their careers. It’s how they get a head start, how they get acting or singing classes or studio time or a role in a movie or spoken about in a newspaper or on TV.
Yeah obviously servants try to imitate the masters. We had celebrities in socialist Poland, actors, singers and so on, but there were nothing like the today. And they were recruited either from the schools and professional career (for example most actors had at least few years of theatre work behind them) or from talent discovery at amateur contests.
But when capitalism returned just 20 years passed and we had full blown showbusiness families and a lot of new celebrities are children and families of previous ones.