The obsession with celebrities has normalised their self-absorption. It's surely no coincidence that narcissism is on the rise
The beauty of this Twitter story – apart from, see how it runs! – is how much more exciting gossip is when you have only bare bones: "A wealthy financier attempting to have his sister-in-law and her husband jailed"; "A TV presenter's alleged attempt to gag his ex-wife"; it's intoxicating. It sounds like the beginning of a parlour game that Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie might play.
Clearly, though, there's a danger here that someone, at some point, is going to step in and make a proper distinction between the public interest and things the public are interested in. The new definition won't include anybody's love life at all – not even Prince Charles's or William Hague's! The public interest will be all government instruments and global catastrophes – such an oxymoron, because we really won't be interested. But, more to the point, unpalatable, because somewhere in the future a new generation will decide that all gossip is in the public interest, just for the leavening effect it has on the rest of the news. But by then it will be too late, because we'll have forgotten how to read and talk.
Into this argument comes a book that has swivelled the subject completely. Lisa Bloom's Think: How to Stay Smart in a Dumbed Down World concludes that the problem with gossip is not that it is unfair on celebrities: the real disservice is the one we do to ourselves. It ruins our minds for higher things, it infects our personalities with the deficiencies of those we gossip about, and it has a concomitant impact on society – such that serious debate at a national level, and community undertakings at a local one, is left undone, because everybody's too busy wondering if Britney wears a wig.
The book has been controversial in the US and, to a lesser degree, here, but mainly, so far, for its two least interesting aspects. First, that Bloom herself is as responsible for so-called "celebrity culture" as anyone, having been a legal affairs commentator for CBS and CNN. She is not known for her constitutionally important coverage; she's the woman who knows what Michael Jackson's sentence might have been, and what might happen to Lindsay Lohan. Second, the argument has been painted as a new instalment in the eternal catfight: now it's the highbrow against the mezzobrow, mothers v non-mothers, working mothers v stay-at-home mothers, fat women v thin ones.
The willingness of women to define themselves against other women's deficiencies is something I find increasingly weird. Sure, it's enjoyable enough, winding yourself up about women who waste their education counting calories and what a bad advert they are for your sex. But can you ever, in a million years, imagine men doing this? Arguing among themselves about whether watching sport was more socially destructive than reading a book? So you have to leave the gender stuff aside to get anything from Bloom, and that's quite difficult, considering that it addresses itself directly to educated women. It takes its hectoring tone from the fact that we owe it to ourselves, not as people but as women, to be more serious. But I think that's just what you have to do to get published.
What is interesting is Bloom's central contention about "mirroring". Because celebrities are by definition narcissists, our interest has normalised their solipsism. This has a number of effects: we're all in thrall to beauty regimes that are ludicrous and, more to the point, inappropriate for the woman on the street. Is there a greater waste of money than the exigencies of vanity? Probably even hedonism has more going for it than the totally fruitless and expensive battle against time. There's been a trickle-down effect, so that positions that would have been "ironic" in the 90s are now taken seriously – young women, according to Bloom, would in the main prefer to be run over by a truck than get fat.
But there are aspects of this that are demonstrably true: before the financial crash 70% of plastic surgery in America was undertaken by people earning less than $25,000. It was one of the hardest-hit industries of the recession, because so much of it relied on credit. How can this be explained, surgery being important enough to get into debt for, unless people are imbibing the priorities of those they admire, whose own behaviour – no doubt under the pressure of our scrutiny – becomes less and less admirable?
There are similar signs everywhere: The Spirit Level showed how many teenagers today, as compared with the 50s, would strongly agree with the statement: "I am a very important person." The authors ascribe the rise of "defensive narcissism" in the absence of any true feelings of worth, in societies where the value of a person is counted in cash, and many people don't have much. The cause and the effect are often indistinguishable, with a culture and its audience, but it's surely not mere coincidence that as narcissism rises, so narcissistic individuals are lauded, not judged.
I am in the inequality camp, and think there is clearly more going on here than an educated class, female or not, simply deciding to worship Britney Spears. (I know … I am way behind with my worshipful females. It should be Lady Gaga.) But I love this idea, that the victims of gossip culture aren't the gossipees but the gossipers. I'd love to hear Madonna use that in an interview: "Obviously this attention is invasive for me, but it's you I feel sorry for."