Elistists or celebrities or whatever

It seems to be a human condition, the need to stand out from the crowd, male or female we need it, but just go about it by different routes. Once apon a time it was just sufficient to be extremely good at what you did, craftsman, sportsman, juggler, gladiator, seductress, just to be the best in your patch. Unless of course you had access to infinite money, when all you had to do was accrete around you land, property, desirable objects, countless minions and then display all, for your piers to revere your undoubted wealth.

No problem with all any of that. We should all respect the long hours of application and subjugation required to become skilled at whatever. We may choose not to rate say gladiatorial skills but surely must acknowledge the physique, adroitness and mastery of weaponry need to be good at it. A fitting reward for those endless hours of practice and perfecting needed to become better than good but to excel within your patch. Likewise to assemble wealth, invest shrewdly to maximise the display of it and to put it in a best setting, all takes tenacity, a preception to see a need and a touch to understand the marketplace. My only problem I have here is the manner of wealth accumulation. Too often it is achieved by crimes against the less well off, less able to defend their limited means. Whether from land grabs off small farmers, or holding people in virtual slavedom or to selling totally bogus and inflated goods or services that just don't deliver. Lets pretend for this blog that all wealthy people acquired it from inventing some life enriching thing, paperclip or biro or whatever and made piles of money selling it at a realistic price, filling a much hole in loads of peoples lives. We can pretend.

What we have now is just banal exhibitionism, anything to gain attention for that moment. At its crudest most devoid of content we have stripping off the shirt to show the tits or its male equivalent dropping the trousers and mooning. All the better if caught on camera and fame has arrived if taken up by YouTube. Really? The media fuels this drive with its endless parade of talentless wannabies that shoot to public notoriety for that brief spark of notice only to sink back to well-deserved oblivion. What is on parade is not talent or skills but just novelty and in the ever escalating pressure to win attention, the more there is a underlying suggestion of ridicule, stupidity, voyeurism, farce or even cruelty so much the better, anything, it really does seem that anything will do, so long as it attracts that all desired attention. It matter not whether it is talent or product or service set out for display, the same attitude prevails

Sad. This endless display and flaunting of mediocrity debases all of our experiences of what should be the appreciation of the heroes of our societies. It dulls and desensitises all of us so we lose the will and interest to spot the real skill or talent emerging, drowned in all this over-hyped noise from those wannabies. The noise is so shrill and insistent it is almost impossible to ignore the clamour of see me, watch me, I bet you have never seen this before. Really? Are our sense and experiences so dull and so limited that we have never encountered any of humans rich palate before but only done or presented better? I do doubt that.

We each have the choice and must make it to ignore the clamour and reserve our praise and attention to those who really do deserve it, who are able to contribute something significant and outstanding examples for us all to aspire to. Lets not look to the gutter but to the heights of human achievement.

Celebrity endorsements

It is not my personal bag, but I do understand there is wide spread interest and fascination in the doings of those considered celebrities. The BBC in catering for the wider public has to provide a constant supply of items about celebrities. Understood, but I do take considerable exception when, over the course of a couple of days, you follow the celebrities progress from one studio to another to appear on a succession of TV or radio programme, with varying degrees of reluctance to talk about themselves and can scarcely hide their impatience to push their products, film, book, DVD or whatever. There is a delicate dance to be done here. The celebrities will not make themselves available, unless needing to promote a failing career, without being given an opportunity to promote their latest offering. The BBC is unable to maintain a supply of non-altruistic celebrities to be consumed by the public without allowing that product promotion. Have you noticed, the bar has lowered considerably over the latter years?

There is a greater reluctance to speak off product by the celebrities, there is a much more blatant display of the product and the BBC has slipped well into the mire of commercial advertisement. The stakes are very high, without access to high volume audiences the commercial enterprises fail, there are no sales. Gain access to a large audience and your commercial product can take off astronomically, if packaged right. None of this is any place where the BBC should be, their charter is not about the promotion of commercial products. What really gets my rag and I do mean really, when a supposed world celebrity dictates terms to the BBC as to the when and how! They want free access to the best and biggest audiences in this country then they have the temerity to specify terms and cannot be bothered to attend a studio. Come off it! Often to then fail to deliver a plausible off product performance. Where has the BBC parked its balls?

The BBC must get back its belief in itself and trust that is able to deliver interesting product. So okay some supposed high-lister does not get to appear in a programme. Whose loss is that in the long run? Not the BBC's and that is for sure. They are able to give access to large audiences across all the age ranges, they can actually call the shots. They can actually call the tune and decide whether the product is or is not displayed and the extent of product promotion to off product discussion takes place. I really do not think this is a youth or a changing media issue. One of the many BBC roles is to provide entertainment and that includes opportunities for celebrities to show off their talents, aires and graces or lack off them as may be. Other alternative outlets will provide for exhaustive product promotions. Get it right and I know where the benefit of audience viewing figure will lie! Just sell a product and the audience either buys into it or switches off mentally. Rather seize the opportunity of public exposure, on a non-commercial platform, to enhance the image making that supports and sustains the cult of celebrity and you are on a winner and in for the long ride. That is what the media savvy celebe understands.

The BBC in offering so many different audience platforms does have problems of tripping over its own feet. Just which audience to make available and what role the appearance is to follow. Not easy when a celebrity can be appealing to a wide audience range. Providing they keep well in check any tendency to hold a celebrity in awe, to be too overtly grateful that their flagging show is going to be boosted by this celebes appearance, I actually believe they do have the necessary skills. Skills to keep using the celebrities in a number of varying ways extracting differing tibbits from them to appeal to the appetite of their audiences and keep the product promotion as a very secondary issue. It is a dance after all of two consenting adults. both with shared and contrary objectives.

Which point does the courtier pass beyond and becomes a whore?