Celebrity Theory

This submission to the Di fan club can be found at http://carolyn.org/celebrity.html

I've always watched the celeb circle with some fascination. They paly an important role for us plebs. I know the Open Pages crew is an exception in general to what I'm going to say below, and yet even in this exception, well watch:

We're all able to know with warmth and concern approximately a tribeful of people, let's say 20 - 250. In the huge and alienating world of modern times, in the age of huge cities and cubicle jobs, we look for our tribe. We need it. And it is no longer, for many of us urbanized individuals, our neighbours and the green grocer next to the smithy. We must look elsewhere.

We find it in a combination, a modern one, of two things. The people we know fromwork and family. The celebs. We can discuss everything pertenant to evaluating others and to enjoying socialing simply by referring to shared celeb stories. O.J., Diana, Elvis, ... oh, and my fave on this list, Hitler. :)

So here we are, a community thriving more than many online or off, and we too jump into the fray to discuss our well-known tribe member, Princess Diana.

It is not simply a matter of whether we care for her as a person - as none of us has truly gotten to know her in that light. She is the tribal representative of something importnat, let's say off the cuff that it is benevolent authority, "the angel of mercy."

Someone in our tribe has died suddenly and young. Blah blah blah... fill in appropriate lesson in life story.

Keep it clear, the world is mourning a person who managed to become a member of quite a number of the local tribes throught he mechanism of media and celeb status. And yes, part of this mourning will be about her children being motherless, her lost youth and beauty, the Royals' problems, etc.

But cananyone doubt that she was not a part of most NA person's tribe? "the most photographed woman in the world" had to have been that way for some reason. The reason in part was for all of us plebs to include her in our tribes. To lessen the modern alienation, we adopt several shared but not known personages, dare I say, much like the greeks adopted a pantheon of gods to share with strangers in discussion. Familiarity breeds peace.

So grant me this idea for the moment. I'd like to claim that the reason online diarists get many of our readers is because we've provided easy and sharable access to teh stuff of the tribe. We are members of many people's tribes simply because, like Di, we are accessible generally, non-locally.

Cool, eh?