You’re innocently placing your groceries on the scanner when you come eye-to-eye with alluring candy bars, a medley of gum choices, and most intriguing, the magazines that include the latest, juiciest gossip of your favorite artist. “Kris Jenner considering doing sex change to be with Bruce/Caitlyn!”, no but in all seriousness that is something I saw once. We are aware of the ridiculousness that is portrayed in social media, but nevertheless we continue to support the industry of big gossip paparazzi. It’s in our nature to want to involve ourselves with gossip, it’s satisfying for most. The glamour that we dream of, the glamour that celebrities are drowning in, keep us involved in their lives, it’s what us common people do. Luckily or maybe not so luckily, we have everything we’d ever need to keep us involved with pop culture at our fingertips, keeping the two worlds connected.

We all know who Miley Cyrus is, right? The girl who harmlessly started out as Hannah Montana on a Disney Channel hit show and who is now known for her hit song, Wrecking Ball, where she is pictured half-naked. Right, well she has now been deemed crazy by essentially all of society. I can’t really blame her, with all the pressure coming from TMZ (a popular website and television show which spotlights celebrity news and information), and other media, and even us, the “average” people, she’s destined to go ballistic. We want gossip, because it is in our nature. Many of us can agree that it brings us satisfaction to know that celebrities are going through hardships, and they usually give us what we want. We like to hear that Miley’s fiance dumped her because she’s way into drugs, and now we like to hear that they’re back together, it’s none of our business, but we like to hear it.

Everyone can dream, but we can’t all achieve, a hard reality no one wants to hear. How is it that Kim Kardashian can own over 15 different types of cars, ranging from a Ferrari to a Porsche? Yet I’m driving my 2005 beat-up Saturn Ion. It’s not fair and we’ve all accepted that fact. Seemingly, Kim Kardashian has done little to nothing regarding her riches, but that certainly doesn’t stop her from exponentially growing her net worth, marrying a famous music artist, or her fame. Some may argue differently, but personally I would argue that the “common” people like myself, would admire Kim and her dozens of cars based on jealousy. We are intrigued by what we don’t have, and this plays out in different scenarios as well. Women often tend to be envious of women with perfect fit bikini bodies, a lot of times found in magazines, commercials, and even right on their phones. Men obsess over the idea of consistently having bigger muscles, and being more fit. It’s our nature.

In 2007 the first Iphone came out, forever changing generations to come. By 2016, nine different models of the iphone have been launched and over 700 million iphones have been sold. These portable devices have made social media websites easy to access, keeping everyone consistently connected. People are easily able to able to get ahold of one another via text, phone calls, emails, through apps, etc. Applications that are easily downloaded onto our phones such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat keep us regularly attached to celebrities who seem far away. Months ago, Snapchat added a new feature to it’s app where it projects live stories, where people from all around the world can peek into famous events such as the Grammy’s, Olympics, and even presidential debates. Often celebrities keep their accounts public on different applications such as Instagram and Twitter, making their profiles available 24/7. Public social media accounts is often where paparazzi attack celebrities and force celebrities to consistently monitor what they say, and when they break a trend of being careful, it tends to go viral.

Society will consistently place their standards on celebrities, and celebrities will choose to either care or not. We want insight into their lives because it keeps our global mainstream interesting, alive. The drama in their lives, the glamour they are exposed to, and our ability to stay connected with them, it’s all intriguing to our world society. Without pop culture we would not have an identity, whether you choose to see it as a negative or positive attribute to our society, it is necessary, and it’s growing.