Author’s Observations:
The word celebrity certainly has a long, very old and prestigious pedigree that goes back to the Latin word celebritas which was itself derived from an earlier Latin word celeber which was preceded by celebr whose meaning was “frequented or honoured.” And down the ages these words passed into old French as cebebrite, and specifically because of the extremely close and enduring linguistic links which existed and still do between the English language and French and characteristically cemented primarily as a direct result of the 1066 Norman invasion, conquest and settlement first of England and later the entirety of the British Isles the word we’re discussing here predictably made its way into the integrated Anglo-Saxon dialect as celebrity.

In contemporary English however the word celebrity commonly refers to a famous person and particularly so someone or persons involved in entertainment or sport and who are thus regarded as being known of by many people. But what are the true characteristics either of or correspondingly for the word famous? Interestingly enough no reference in that specific generalization is ever consciously made about these individuals’ intrinsic worth or lack of it as human beings, which I would have thought should have been fundamental characteristics that were genuinely requisite for anyone to possess that was considered whoever by as truly worthy of the definitions celebrity and famous.

Alas however that certainly isn’t the case even when celebrity and famous can both turn out at times to be a most awkward and even a hugely problematical double-edged sword which can be dreadfully troublesome for those who’re directly involved. For like the reverse side of a coin famous and celebrity have their flipsides as well with the words infamous and non-celebrity firmly embedded there and which can and do often sit uneasily and discomfitingly with the frequent and fatuous acclamation that is profusely and rather unwarrantedly given to those who were irresponsibly and brainlessly hailed as incontestably famous or eminent celebrity figures. And the name Jimmy Savile immediately comes to mind although he was by no means the only such person regrettably still alive or thankfully dead as he now is that appropriately and unquestionably falls into that flawed category, shall we charitably say, of universally applauded and dementedly lauded famous personalities and celebrities.

Even so the fundamental and still unresolved conundrum, although a number of conjectural hypotheses have at times been put forward for this ongoing state of affairs, is precisely why is it that so many people globally, but most particularly so in the west, are so evidently and intransigently mesmerized by as well as infernally and addictively hooked on this celebrity status cult obsession of significantly and more often than not exceedingly irrationally hero-worshipping other mortal human beings; and besides doing so unhesitatingly and without a solitary moment’s thought or any consideration whatsoever in relation to factoring into that puerile and unthinking equation of theirs any attentive regard for the intrinsic human worth or inestimable moral value system or otherwise of those whom they’ve inanely and most self-indulgently placed atop of the pedestals usually built on the shifting sands of populous and capricious public opinion that they and others have self-satisfyingly erected at the time to their inglorious but wannabe “immortalized” celebrity heroes?

And I ask myself: “How can anyone be so entirely lacking in self-worth that the only pride which they think they can realistically achieve and revel in is through the deluded notion of hero-worshipping someone else? Acknowledging that person’s capabilities is one thing but hero-worshipping them to the point of idiotic fixation? Sorry to disappoint but that doesn’t, never has or will it ever work for me! Not even in an inveterately class-obsessed and social climbing, cap-doffing Britain.”