Why Doesn't the FDA Regulate This Stuff?

In general, no one benefits from an addiction. People get addicted to a variety of things (cigarettes, alcohol, porn, etc), usually doing so at the cost of interpersonal relationships and personal health. The simple fact is that it’s very rare to be at a party and overhear the words, “gee whiz, getting addicted to [insert pretty much anything here] was the best decision I ever made.” They are bad and generally not the best things in the world to have. They can harm you, and in many cases they can harm others, as well.

For these and other historical reasons, the government regulates addictive substances such as drugs, alcohol, tobacco and even porn in an attempt to protect the people from their evils. You have to be a certain age to get them, if you’re able to get them at all, and you’re always encouraged to use them in moderation. However, there is one very addictive thing that is completely legal, readily available, and can even be delivered to your home.

Literally millions are addicted to it. For proof, a simple glance through TV listings suggests that many Americans can’t go a single day without somehow connecting themselves to a celebrity in some way, shape, or form. And what an addiction this is. For instance, on an average weeknight from 5-10 PM*, a viewer in the bay area can find up to 18 shows that either document celebrity lifestyles or spread the latest celebrity news and gossip. In turn, this means that during a prime five hour long block of time a viewer has between three and four choices per hour of celebrity-related shows. Many of these shows even employ celebrity “experts” to keep track of celebrity trends, styles, and faux pas, experts who keep the viewer constantly informed. There’s no difference between them and the insurance agents who handle the Union Pacific rail line. They both make money off train wrecks.

To take the concept to the big time, since many of these shows are nationally (and internationally) syndicated, it is entirely possible for any of the roughly 30 million people who watch prime-time TV on any given night to go an entire evening doing nothing but watching, say, Ozzy Osbourne complain about dog shit. In lieu of interacting with their families or engaging in a hobby, they literally watch Ozzy talk about dog shit. Not singing, not writing music, just complaining about the volume of fecal matter produced by a few terriers.

One has to wonder what jobs people who watch these shows hold. Does Bush watch Celebrity Boxing? Have any of my professors ever been talking about Oscar Wilde or Bergman’s and Allen’s Rules while wondering what kind of shampoo George Clooney uses? Have any heart surgeons ever drifted during a procedure and caught themselves wondering who was going to get kicked out of the “Surreal Life” house that night?

The implications are frightening to say the least.

These sorts of distractions are made even more available by VH1, which not only devotes entire evenings to celebrities complaining about living with one another but even programs up to an hour and a half at a time of the exact same show playing over and over again. It’s a formula that seems to work: a single night of this kind of programming can net them over 10 million viewers (or a potential 1/3 of the market). In any case, the numbers clearly show that celebriphelia isn’t a simple, campy interest, nor is it at all isolated. An audience of 30 million people (or even a minimum of 10 million) isn’t exactly chump change; we’re talking about an army, here, an army caught by a massively addictive substance made available to the masses.

What truly invokes the classic definition of addiction, though, is that these people don’t seem to be making a very healthy lifestyle choice. As anyone who has read more than three words of any health-related news from the past 15 years could tell you, those that spend too much time sitting in front of the TV take fewer steps per day (and get less exercise in general), which, when coupled with certain other choices, can eventually lead to heart disease, liver failure, and death. Even though celebrity addiction doesn’t have the intoxicating effects of vodka, when consumed in large enough amounts on a regular basis both of them can ruin your liver and take you to the same endpoint.

People even have multiple choices of ways to get their celebrity joneses fulfilled. One popular choice is to pick up a tabloid, which provides you with a way to stay connected to your favorite celebrities during commercials and other downtime that might hinder coverage. That, plus reading makes you, like, smarter and stuff. These are also the cheap bathroom rugs of the press; everything sticks to them and only your mom is able to touch them without retching a bit. As bad as that may sound, it makes the addiction that much easier to fulfill as these magazines never, EVER let anything go for more than a week. The Enquirer still gossips about Princess Di, for God’s sake. The woman’s been dead since 1997 but she still manages to have drama in her life.

So, as we can see, celebriphelia is really no different from alcoholism or tobacco addiction. Not only is celebrity coverage highly addictive and massively popular but completely unregulated and deleterious to the health of the user. But my original question is still unanswered: why isn’t this somehow regulated? If the government is so caught up with protecting us from all that other stuff (some of which doesn’t even hurt us… you know what I’m talking about), then why won’t the FDA (or maybe the FCC) jump on celebrity addiction to “protect” us from that, too?

Well, it all goes back to my comment about Bush and celebrity boxing…
* TV listings from yahoo.com