Daily Prompt – Make It Count

You’ve been given the opportunity to send one message to one person you wouldn’t normally have access to (for example: the President. Kim Kardashian. A coffee grower in Ethiopia). Who’s the person you choose, and what’s the message?

So basically, you’re saying I’ve just installed Twitter…??

Daily Prompt – Instant Celebrity

If you could be a famous person for a day, who would you be? Why?

This is rather hard for me to answer. Well, for two reasons. A) because I have far too many celebrities to choose from, but B) because I fucking hate the idea of being a celebrity!

May 30 – Cook for the Chef

Would you feel nervous or confident cooking dinner for a professional chef?

 
Are you kidding me? I think that just having a professional chef in my house, eating my food would be terrifying enough on it’s own, let alone faced with the daunting task of then having to cook for them… could you imagine how horrifying it would be to cook for them and then fuck it all up??

Apr 11: Role Models

Should celebrities strive to be role models, or should they not be held to a different standard than the average private citizen?

I thoroughly agree that celebrities should be striving to be role models. They are people who are regularly in the media. They’re people who influence others, and people that others look up to. When people like Justin Bieber are off behaving like an idiot, throwing eggs at cars and houses and peeing into mop buckets, apart from being gross and juvenile, all it does is tell the youth that this sort of behaviour is acceptable.

Yes, on the other hand I do agree that they also deserve to have their own privacy, without being subjected to having their entire lives splashed across the pages of gossip mags, but unfortunately, that’s not how the world operates. It’s just something that comes with the territory of celebrity.

I must acknowledge that there are a number of celebrities who do actively go out of their way to ensure that they are good role models – not just to youth, but to men and women. I must say it’s great when celebrities get on board with social campaigns – it helps give more of a presence of the issue within society. It gets people to stop and think ‘Well, if somebody like *insert celebrity name* is supporting this cause, then maybe I should look into it and think about supporting it too…’ and that’s something so incredibly powerful. Campaigns such as R U Ok and NO H8 are great when they involve celebrity endorsement, because it also shows that even celebrities have a soul, and an opinion, and are prepared to stand up and say something in support of what they consider an important social issue.

Granted, the flip side of this is the hideous celebrity endorsement of all kinds of different products and services. Cosmetic companies are perhaps the worst, signing up different famous women for their next campaign, or for them to be the next ‘face’ of the brand…

-Revlon: Emma Stone, Olivia Wilde, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel

– COVERGIRL: Drew Barrymore, Taylor Swift, Ellen DeGeneres, Rihanna

– M.A.C. VIVA GLAM: Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, Fergie, RuPaul, Boy George, Missy Elliott

So yes, whilst companies are more than prepared to throw disgusting amounts of money for celebrity endorsement, and lets face it, I highly doubt they would actually be using the products they’re endorsing… isn’t that what re-gifting is all about??

Apr 10: Scandalous Society

F.H. Bradley said, “There are persons who, when they cease to shock us, cease to interest us.”  Do we live in a society that needs scandal?

Of course society needs scandal. Whether people admit it or not, society generally has a secret love for a scandal, especially if that scandal involve celebrities. We’re fixated on the celebrity life. Some people have a resentment towards them simply because they believe that celebrities walk around in their own little bubble, thinking that they’re better than everybody else, so when they’re involved in something scandalous, these people revel in it, seeing it as just desserts or karma for their own arrogance.

Then there’s the media – where would all the gossip magazines be without constant scandal… Or in some cases, complete fabrication of a scandal, just for the sole purpose of selling more copies. Without scandal, they simply wouldn’t exist because they would have nothing to print.

Then there are the celebrities themselves. How many times have you heard a celebrity tell the paparazzi to leave them alone? Even just the act of doing that can be spun into a story about how that person had a complete outburst at a photographer or reporter and BOOM!! there’s their next story. Somebody call TMZ!! Personally, I believe that if a celebrity didn’t want to be in the public spotlight so much, they’d just have to be really boring in order for the media to stop drawing focus on them. But even in saying that, so many paparazzi would be more than happy to document every step you take whilst you do completely mundane activities, like dropping off your dry cleaning, getting a manicure, going to Starbucks etc. But even then, a simple photograph of a celebrity getting a latte can be spun into anything.

 

Jan 21: Perfection

Do you feel pressure to be perfect? How much of it is tied to what you see online?

Most certainly not.

Perfect doesn’t exist. We all have our ideal of what perfect is – what it looks like, what it feels like etc, and a lot of people strive for that – perfect life, perfect job, perfect partner etc etc, but it simply does not exist.

The media, in it’s various shapes and forms, plants a seed in your head – if you look a certain way, then your life will be happier and easier, you’ll be popular, you’ll marry a model, live in a mansion, have lots of money so you can spend your days living like one of those bitches from The Real Housewives…

… I don’t buy it.

Maybe it’s because I’m so jaded?

When was the last time you saw a model interviewed? Miranda Kerr, anyone?!? Even Sportspeople… hello, Ryan Lochte…

Both of them are incredibly beautiful, and great at what they do… so long as they don’t open their mouth – then it’s all over. But people like this are everywhere… basically anything that doesn’t rely on being skilled enough to string a sentence together. They may be beautiful, but sometimes it ends there. Take Miranda Kerr… gorgeous, Australian, ambassador for countless organisations, international supermodel, and up until last year, was Mrs Orlando Bloom… as an outsider looking in, she seems to have the perfect life, job, partner etc.

…now he’s left her, she’s been dumped by Victoria’s Secret, as well as a number of organisations as their spokesperson etc, does she still seem to epitomise what we view as perfection??

Being seen as somebody who has everything doesn’t exempt them from all the personal and professional shit life throws at every single one of us. Just because you’re famous, and beautiful, and rich etc, doesn’t mean you’re untouchable.

But that’s the problem, the media constantly portrays a life of wealth and beauty as being perfect, when really it might appear like that, but underneath all those diamonds and designer dresses, they’re just as miserable as the rest of us.

Case in point, let’s look at Taylor Armstrong from Real Rich Bitches Housewives of Beverly Hills:

Married to a very successful (read: wealthy) business man, has a young daughter, lives in a mansion, wears designer dresses, is driven around in a limo, flies on private jets, runs a charity, donates to charity, has published a book, spends her days lunching with the other ladies, attending social events, and basically just being a rich glamorous bitch.

Sounds pretty perfect, right?

Well, behind all that, she was being abused by her husband, keeping it from her friends, developed a drinking habit as a coping mechanism, lashed out at her friends for even talking about it, tried to keep her husband happy and went against everybody else’s advice to just get out and save herself and her daughter and had a number of pretty epic breakdowns. In the end her husband hung himself, she found the body, was up to her eyeballs in lawsuits and debt, discovered her husband had a completely secret life and business dealings she knew nothing about, and had to sell off her possessions including her wedding ring to start repaying her husbands debts.

Still sounding perfect to you?? Didn’t think so.

Even with Taylors case, I think it’s wrong to be airing such dirty laundry like that and bringing it to the public’s attention, because it’s between her and her husband, and who’s right is it to get in amongst whatever issue they’re having. On the other hand, she’s said that she’s grateful that it was featured on the show, simply because of that reason. It brought attention to something like domestic violence. It brought attention to the fact that here is this woman being beaten by her husband, and she’s still managing to be a parent for her child, and continue about her day as though nothing is wrong, putting on a brave face, whereas her girlfriends (and the rest of the country) are all sitting by thinking ‘gurrl, you gotta get outta that situation!!’. But nobody can force her to do something she’s not comfortable doing.

I feel sorry for all celebrities having their private life plastered all over the news, especially when it’s about their relationships and the ending of them. Celebrity divorces, custody battles etc, they’re all big sellers in the media, but part of me feels that at the end of the day, they’re still human beings like the rest of us.

If I was going through a divorce, I wouldn’t want anybody knowing the ins and outs of the situation as it would be between me and my ex – who else’s business is it? Oh that’s right, NOBODIES!!

So no, I don’t believe in perfection. You might, and good for you for doing so, but I see the world for the harsh reality that it is, and it’s certainly not perfection.