I'm listening to
Just Like Us ,
Clare Malone's
terrific podcast
on
celebrity culture
over the past 25 years.
Given that her episodes began airing in February 2022, that "a little late" might sound like you've fallen into the wildest FOMO trap: something
less than a year old
shouldn't be out of date.
But
Just Like Us
begins with the
analysis of one of the
most media couples of recent times:
Bennifer
.
When Clare Malone records her podcast, the union
between Ben Affleck and Jennifer López belongs to the past,
although the first reunions of the actor/director and the singer/actress/producer/dancer/legend date back to early 2022.
So yeah,
Just Like Us
is a bit dated in that regard, but everything else is still like new.
His journey through
the history of La Fama
is priceless.
Malone relates how
we have gone from a celebrity culture
based on Hollywood and paper magazines to a landscape in which
celebrities are famous for being famous,
their narratives are controlled by themselves through social networks and
Kim Kardashian, a A woman without a trade or benefit
before being famous, she managed to have several trades and enormous benefits when she knew how to capitalize on a
fame founded on nothing real.
From paparazzi chasing movie
stars to reality show stars
being their own paparazzi.
From paying outrageous amounts for the first photos of Brad and Angelina's children (we're talking about millions of dollars) to clever celebrities who post photos taken by telephoto professionals on their networks who, in this way, see how they
are automatically devalued in the market ,
going from being expensive exclusives to free memes.
From publications with a budget to seat reporters in the seat next to a movie diva's on an airplane (we're talking first class on a transoceanic flight) to media aimed at African-American audiences who bought at ridiculous prices "any photo of anyone black" to walk into a party, knowing that the regular customers in those photos only wanted images of whites and unaware that a good part of the American population was also interested in the
nights out of Gabrielle Union or Nia Long.
The Just Like Us
episode
focusing on
systemic American racism
is as terrifying as it is specific to the country it speaks of.
In almost everything else, the podcast is perfectly applicable to Spain.
There they have
Perez Hilton
and here we have
Antonio Rossi,
they read insults on TMZ for years, we enjoyed for a while (yes: we enjoyed, we are so accomplices) with the "aaargh" of a certain magazine.
They have
Wendy Williams
and we have
Ana Rosa
, they have
Bennifer
and
Brangelina
and we have
Maribel
(Mario + Isabel),
Eyetano
(Eva + Cayetano) and
Felizia
(or Letipe).
They have
the Kardashians and we have the Camposhians,
they have Mar-a-Lago and we have
Ambitions
,
Cantora
and the rancid portal of the Pujol house.
They
drove Britney crazy
and then turned her into a symbol, we
laughed at Chenoa
in another portal and recently abandoned by Bisbal and now even she makes jokes about the tracksuit she wore to star in that mythical moment.
Some things have gotten worse, others have gotten better.
And
everything has changed so that everything remains the same.
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