Robert Safuto

I was talking with a friend recently and mentioned that we're now in an era of disposable celebrities. The celebrity comes into and goes out of our lives very easily. This wasn't always so.

There was a time when you had to work to become known in popular culture. Most celebrities were known to us via TV or movies which were very hard to break into. Today it's much easier to get into TV due to reality shows. You can be some big lug from Jersey drinking into a stupor on the Jersey Shore one day and on The Tonight Show the next. No talent required.

There was a time when you had to work for years to make it to The Tonight Show. Now almost anyone can be a prop on that show or a host of other late night talkfests. Once you're seen there you're a celebrity, worth following by TMZ and Radar Online. And that's the real reality show isn't it? Let's see what trainwreck occurs while they're heading out for coffee.

What we have now is this celebrity culture where we know names and faces but not much else. Even the Twitter and Facebook updates are mostly written by lackeys, paid and unpaid, whose job is to keep the name of the particular celebrity "out there."

The upshot of all this is the fact that we can take or leave almost all celebrities very easily. The celebs know this fact. Why else would women stuff their lips with collagen, burn the color out of their hair and consume diet pills? They're looking for that special attention elixir. While women celebs turn to that stuff the men turn to women and drugs too. Look at this Tiger Woods thing. He's really famous, and with good reason, but it turns out it was all about something else. Feeding a fragile ego. Why else would Heath Ledger stuff his face with pills? You can't fill yourself up with celebrity. So the other stuff is a toxic substitute.

The public moves on very easily. So long Heath. So long Brittany. So long DJ AM. What time is The Soup on again?

This is merely an observation about the way things are. Perhaps it could also be a word of caution to the wannabe celebrity. As fast as everyone knows your name they can forget your name, faster than ever before.