Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America's Favorite Addiction
Jan 2008 · Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Ebook
262
Pages
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About this ebook
The author of Welcome to the New World and Bad Paper discusses America’s obsession with celebrity in this 2007 investigation.
Why do more people watch American Idol than the nightly news? What is it about Paris Hilton’s dating life that lures us so? Why do teenage girls—when given the option of “pressing a magic button and becoming either stronger, smarter, famous, or more beautiful” —predominantly opt for fame? In this entertaining and enlightening book, Jake Halpern explores the fascinating and often dark implications of America’s obsession with fame. He travels to a Hollywood home for aspiring child actors and enrolls in a program that trains celebrity assistants. He visits the offices of Us Weekly and a laboratory where monkeys give up food to stare at pictures of dominant members of their group. The book culminates in Halpern’s encounter with Rod Stewart’s biggest fan, a woman from Pittsburgh who nominated the singer for Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
Fame Junkies reveals how psychology, technology, and even evolution conspire to make the world of red carpets and velvet ropes so enthralling to all of us on the outside looking in.
Praise for Fame Junkies
“An astute look at the mighty vortex of fame, which this author believes will only get more powerful.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Halpern displays an evocative, insiderish style reminiscent . . . of Tom Wolfe’s when he peered into 1960s celebrity culture.” —Wall Street Journal
“A critical look at Americans’ infatuation with fame and determines that fame is elusive, desirable—and also possibly addictive . . . . [An] engaging study.” —Publishers Weekly
Why do more people watch American Idol than the nightly news? What is it about Paris Hilton’s dating life that lures us so? Why do teenage girls—when given the option of “pressing a magic button and becoming either stronger, smarter, famous, or more beautiful” —predominantly opt for fame? In this entertaining and enlightening book, Jake Halpern explores the fascinating and often dark implications of America’s obsession with fame. He travels to a Hollywood home for aspiring child actors and enrolls in a program that trains celebrity assistants. He visits the offices of Us Weekly and a laboratory where monkeys give up food to stare at pictures of dominant members of their group. The book culminates in Halpern’s encounter with Rod Stewart’s biggest fan, a woman from Pittsburgh who nominated the singer for Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.
Fame Junkies reveals how psychology, technology, and even evolution conspire to make the world of red carpets and velvet ropes so enthralling to all of us on the outside looking in.
Praise for Fame Junkies
“An astute look at the mighty vortex of fame, which this author believes will only get more powerful.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Halpern displays an evocative, insiderish style reminiscent . . . of Tom Wolfe’s when he peered into 1960s celebrity culture.” —Wall Street Journal
“A critical look at Americans’ infatuation with fame and determines that fame is elusive, desirable—and also possibly addictive . . . . [An] engaging study.” —Publishers Weekly
About the author
Jake Halpern is the author of Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America's Favorite Addiction, and Braving Home: Dispatches from the Underwater Town, the Lava-Side Inn, and Other Extreme Locales, hailed by Bill Bryson as ?a splendid and engaging account of stubbornness in Modern America." Halpern has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, LA Weekly, and many other publications. He is also a commentator and freelance producer for NPR's All Things Considered. He lives in Connecticut.
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