eating crow (b'lo bracha)

So for a while now I have been going on and on and making noise about how much I hate that page in People magazine which gushes that celebrities are people just like me and you because they do things like take out their garbage and go to movie premieres. My anger came from 2 sources:
1. they aren't like me because I worry about bills and have a job and don't wear clothes that were designed just for me
2. they are like me because they are just regular people and we create this cult of personality and put them on a pedestal so that we have to be reassured that they do, indeed, still breathe oxygen.

Anyway, this morning I'm on Facebook and I see that a "friend" (definition: someone I haven't spoken to in 20 years but whose movements I'm supposed to care about) posted a video and someone decided to "like" it. A word to the uninitiated -- you can give a hearty "thumbs up" to something that someone on your "friend" list posts. It costs nothing and means about as much but it is the epitome of the empty gesture that the notion of Facebook Friends has engendered.

The person giving the Thumbs up was and is a celebrity, meaning that my friend is close enough acquaintances with a TV and movie star that they became friends on Facebook. Now that's fine by me because it could happen. it could also happen that, like in other social networking contexts, celebrities do get involved. They post Twitter tweets to let the masses know when they blow their noses...the virtual equivalent to riding in a limo and waving out of the barely lowered back window. And I have found the profiles of celebrities, some as their official fan sites and one or two as private citizens. I haven't added myself as a fan because that demeans us all, and I haven't unilaterally tried to friend the private profiles because that sounds like sucking up to fame or intruding upon the privacy so that I can be of the "in group."

When I saw that some celebrity was proactive enough to click the "like" button on one of his friend's posts I was shocked. Here is this TV star who lurks on Facebook, clicks through on links that regular people post and comes forward with his opinion. Pure regular people behavior! So I guess I have to admit that sometimes, despite the culture creation mechanism, some stars are always regular nice people and they are just like me. Assuming I was nice.