The Apple Guy

I was once asked by a 9 year-old I baby-sit “Why do we celebretize people?”

I couldn’t really give him a real social-economic answer because the attention span of a 9 year-old is equivalent to the average length of a TV commercial. Instead I gave him an answer that was along the lines of “People who feel that their lives are too boring like to celebritize others.”

I was very impressed by how he asked his question. He did not ask me “why are there celebrities?”

The question tells me that he already knew that celebrities are ordinary people and there is a certain thing that society does to transform these individuals into celebrities.

I think that businesses realized there was a demand for a celebrity image and then brainwashed society to further demand celebrities (for certain monetary reasons). I think a more interesting question would be “What makes a celebrity?”

A long time ago, without technology, those who were written about in scriptures were sort of celebrities. They were made up of army generals, religious leaders, inventors, leading scientists, government officials, etc. Now a day all it takes to be a celebrity is the right public exposure. Celebrities now range from Britney Spears to William hung to Jared from Subway.

Celebrities are very profitable for businesses in many different ways. The problem is, the bigger the celebrity the more costly they are to acquire for sponsorships and/or endorsements. To get around this problem, businesses should take non-celebrities and create them into celebrities themselves. This way, businesses have a celebrity to profit from and only at the cost of what it takes to turn that person into a celebrity. For example, Apple should take an average guy and have him in every commercial, banner, billboard, etc. This guy will be known as the “Apple Guy,” he will have a catch phrase and a hip button up shirt he always wears. Not only will they have a celebrity, people will be talking about the Apple Guy and thus perpetuating free additional advertisement.