why are we so interested in celebrities?
I love a good date. One of my all-time favorites is from Mark Twain: "If I've written this long letter, it's because I haven't had time to make it shorter," he once told a friend.
It is a wonderful irony that I have repeated to my friends and co-workers. Typical of Twain, you might say.
Only it is not. I was recently told that the true author of the quote is a lesser known French thinker named Blaise Pascal, who wrote the phrase in a letter to a friend in 1657. I looked it up and confirmed that it was true.
And that's not the only date I've been abusing.
I'm sure many of you are familiar with Einstein's brilliant saying: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." It is probably the most famous thing he said, after the formula "E = mc2".
But there is no record that it was he who spoke these words. The phrase first appeared in print was in 1981, in a Narcotics Anonymous brochure, some 25 years after his death. And there are many more similar examples.
Winston Churchill, Benjamin Franklin, and Martin Luther King have probably said less than half the things that are thought. Quotes become important when they come from people who have become famous for their wit and wisdom.
Attributing quotes incorrectly exemplifies our tendency to give too much credit to celebrities.
Fame is a powerful cultural magnet. As hypersocial species we acquire most of our knowledge, ideas and skills by copying others, through trial and error. However, much more attention is paid to the habits and behaviors of celebrities than to those of ordinary members of our community.
That is why something is very likely to become popular if it is associated with a known person for one reason or another, even if the association is wrong, as in the case of Twain and Einstein. This raises the question of whether what is said is as important as who said it.
Celebrity culture
Another example of the way characters act as cultural magnets is that we often copy traits that have little or nothing to do with what made them successful in the first place: the clothes they wear, their hairstyles, how they speak, etc. .
That is basically the reason why companies seek stars to sponsor their products. Celebrities are always on television and in the media. Getting them to wear a watch or jeans brand is a great promotion.
But it is not just about putting products in public view. There is no way of knowing - by looking at television images or photographs in a newspaper - what kind of underwear David Beckham wears, what coffee George Clooney drinks, or what perfume Beyoncé wears smells like.
Companies look to celebrities to advertise these types of products because they know that our perception of value is actively influenced by fame. Celebrity endorsements not only make products more visible, but also more desirable.
Why is this happening? Celebrity culture is often portrayed as relatively new, a product of a media-saturated society.
While I agree that celebrity culture has been shaped by the modern world, the truth is that it is rooted in the most basic human instincts, which have played a key role in the acquisition of culture and have been crucial to the evolutionary success of our species.
We could focus on the anthropology of prestige, a form of social status that is based on the respect and admiration of members of the community itself. It is particularly interesting to anthropologists because it appears to be a unique feature of our species, which is also universal to all human cultures.
By force of prestige
In other primates, social hierarchies are normally based on domination, which is different from prestige, since it implies fear and the threat of violence.
Individuals give in to more dominant animals because if they do not let them have what they want, it will be perceived that they are challenging their status, which they will defend by force. Many types of hierarchies in human society are similar.
However, unlike other primates, we also differentiate social status in terms of reputation.
In contrast to domination, prestige arises voluntarily. It is given free to people in recognition of their achievements in a particular field and is not endorsed by force.
How did this type of system arise? The most compelling theory is that prestige was developed as part of a package of psychological adaptations for cultural learning. This allowed our ancestors to recognize and reward people with superior skills and knowledge, and to learn from them.
New discoveries and techniques - for example, how to take advantage of the medicinal properties of plants or to optimize the design of hunting weapons - spread among the population and allowed successive generations to take advantage of and improve the knowledge of their predecessors.
Although the preference to imitate some prestigious individuals has helped promote the diffusion of adaptive behaviors, anthropologists suggest that it can make us susceptible to copying traits that are not always useful in themselves, and that can even be harmful.
The reason is that prestige-biased learning is a strategy aimed at successful models and not at specific traits. This is what makes it such a powerful and flexible tool, as the traits that make a person successful can vary considerably in different settings, so it makes sense to copy the one who seems to be doing the best at a given time and place. .
However, this strategy can lead people to adopt all the behaviors exhibited by a role model, including those that have nothing to do with their success.
For example, men can watch a successful hunter perform some type of incantation while retouching the tips of his arrow, and adopt both ritual and techniques when preparing their own tools.
This trend, I think, explains our interest in what sports stars and singers wear, the car they drive, and where they shop.
In the past the useless traits that were acquired as a result of prestige-biased learning were outweighed by the benefits of learning useful skills. Therefore, in the long term, it turned out to be an effective adaptation strategy.
However, I am far from being convinced that our attraction to prestige continues to promote superior cultural knowledge and skills.
Famous vs. model to follow
The modern world is very different, and I think that the originally adaptive bias to imitate successful people has today morphed into an unhealthy obsession with celebrities, to whom we pay far more attention than they deserve.
Let me illustrate the point through a diet analogy. We have an evolutionary preference for sugary and fatty foods, because they were the ones that motivated our ancestors to look for ripe meat and fruits, rich in essential nutrients. But in today's world, these previously adaptive tastes have led to a massive obesity epidemic.
Similarly, we can think of the media as a kind of junk food for the mind. It's quick, practical, but not exactly nutritious. We lose ourselves in images of wealth and success because we have an appetite for prestige. But are celebrities really good role models?
By posing this question, I am not referring to the highly publicized cases of misbehavior, but to the purpose of the star.
In ancient societies, the blueprint for a good role model was relatively well defined - a good hunter or gatherer, for example. In our society, with its complex class system, the division of labor and the mix of cultures, the criteria for success are much more varied. Many celebrities have achieved their success in fields such as sports and music, which few of us can emulate.
But we still imitate what we can, because our brains are hardwired to associate prestige with adaptive behavior. And since fame is the main sign of prestige, the more famous they are, the more people they attract.
It is not surprising then that fame has become an end in itself. In the modern world, it doesn't really matter what you're famous for.
Indeed, although celebrities receive more attention and prestige than at any other time in human history, we are frequently being told that they should not be role models.
But - seen from the evolutionary anthropological perspective that I have outlined - you may ask, how do you become famous without being a role model?
Why benefit them with prestige, if we are not reciprocated with something useful?
As we ponder these questions, we might reflect on these words from Samuel Johnson, one of England's most important literary figures: "Getting a name is one of the few things that cannot be bought. It is the free gift of humanity, which must be deserved before it is awarded. "
At least I think this time the author is Samuel Johnson.
