The word ‘Celebrity’ has become a multi-use term. Not only does the C-word now refer to any old riff raff with a slot on television and a sex tape scandal, ‘Celebrity’ is also peddled freely as a marketing term synonymous with luxury and excess. Many would have you believe that their day spa, hotel, or pet grooming business offers ‘celebrity treatment’. The word is supposed to confer the essence of being loved, pampered, and indulged, because as we all know, celebrities live lives of blissful perfection; floating ethereally in the firmament, touched by angels. There is one service, however, that does offer a celebrity treatment that is quite a lot truer to life, and it certainly isn’t one I’d pay for.
This curious service, offered by companies like
Applause and
Celeb 4 A Day offers to deploy several photographers to follow you around like paparazzi. These ‘paparazzi’ will harass you, take your photograph and shout personal questions at you. The companies later post the photos on their fabricated gossip website with various slanderous claims about your sex life or career scandal. To clarify, this isn’t a photo shoot; the photographer is not hired to make you look your best and make beautiful memories. Their job is to aggressively invade your personal space and privacy, but it’s ok. You hired them to do it.
The service is designed to enhance the experience of a special night like a school formal or Hen’s night, but you can also hire these personal paparazzi to follow you around on your day-to-day business- even to your home. I would assume most bookings come from bridesmaids for attention-loving Hens but other more creative uses might be embarrassing that failing middle-aged rock band you know, or stalking your ex without being served with a pesky AVO. Perhaps people even book the service for themselves, just to get a little boost. To
feel better about themselves by imagining themselves as a Kardashian for a day. It takes all sorts I suppose.
Personally, as someone who hates getting my photo taken I can’t imagine this experience would leave the customer feeling anything less than shit. I am, however, unusual in this aspect. The practice of having your photograph taken has changed dramatically over the last few years. With your average citizen holding twelve digital cameras on their person at any one time, and with facebook pages to document and validate our lives (all the fun we all have ALL THE TIME), posing for photos has become a thoroughly enjoyable pastime for many. Personally I yearn for the good old days when having your photo taken meant standing perfectly still with a mean look on your face once every ten years, with a resulting picture that was black and white with pupil-less eyes because you glanced away at one point during the fifteen minutes the shutter was closing. Alas, those days are long gone.
I don’t wish to quell anyone’s dreams of being a celebrity, but I would suggest their might be nicer aspects to the lifestyle than being stalked and harassed. Regardless, this service is finally available to you, and it speaks volumes about why we value celebrity. These personal paparazzi services don’t offer to house you in luxurious surrounds. They won’t make you more beautiful, give you better taste, make you rich, and they certainly won’t bestow the satisfaction of owning success and talent. What these services provide, purely and simply, is attention. The pleasure of feeling like everyone in the world cares about what you do.
The experiences are actually quite analogous to the experience of an real celebrity. You get harangued by people who are only interested in you for your money, your embarrassing photos are published on the internet- marring your integrity forever more, and the next day, when it is all over and done with, you are completely forgotten. Unloved. Your fifteen minutes are over. That means there is only one thing left to do…
Unfortunately, typing into Google: “hire professional pornographer to make my celebrity sex tape” returns no results, but I am convinced this service must exist somewhere.