Living in Los Angeles, the question "have you met any celebrities?" seems to pop up quite a bit from people who don't live around the area. There are endless tabloids trying to make profits off of gossip about celebrity lifestyles and drama. Any time people see a celebrity walking on the street, everyone suddenly becomes his or her biggest fan and start bringing out the selfies. In fact, I was at a Dodger game the other day and Ice Cube and Charlie Sheen happened to be there sitting in the section in front of me, and the second Ice Cube got up to go to the bathroom, everyone started standing up and bombarding him with selfies and pictures. Working in Hollywood, I often run into celebrities and have given them a compliment before when running into them, especially if I'm a huge fan, but I felt weird asking for anything more since I felt like I was intruding.

Although we can be admirers of these people's work, a lot of people tend to forget that celebrities are humans too. I mean, who wouldn't get excited that someone they look up to is near them, but privacy for them has become very inaccessible with constant paparazzi and social media so available to everyone. As celebrities, they do have somewhat of a responsibility to give back to the fans that help them become such a success through pictures and what not, but why are these people so sensationalized? Honestly, why does everyone care if a certain couple broke up or if a different celebrity gained a few pounds. It really is not much of our business considering we really don't know these people we look up to and yet so many people read these tabloids or articles and pretend like they really do. It may be entertaining to buy into celebrity fan culture for escapism purposes, but if I were a celebrity I really wouldn't want a bunch of people knowing every detail of my private personal life while discussing it over lunch with some buddies. Especially since tabloids have the tendency to print so many over exaggerations and unconfirmed rumors that spread like wildfire.

Basically, we give celebrities so much power and praise because of their fame and fortune. Because of America's unhealthy obsession with celebrity culture, these figures heavily influence the very susceptible younger population on issues like acceptable body image, fashion, and how to act in general. This culture is also perpetuating the obsession with the quest for fame and fortune in people all around the nation. A lot of these people are famous because they happened to have a talent that revolved around the entertainment industry. However, we don't see paparazzi lining up to take pictures of outstanding, talented doctors or lawyers or people in any other profession. Celebrities excel at their art, and that is great, but they are still just people like any one of us, and should not be made out to be superior to the rest of us because of their fame and fortune as there are many people in different fields who also excel at their job and accomplish great feats.