How do I know this? For two reasons. One, why should she? She exists in another realm and breathes another kind of air than I do. She doesn't have to care what I think. She's made a ton, several tons, actually, of money trafficking on her looks and on a carefully crafted version of herself that represents the kind of vapid, clueless celebrity that people like me roll their eyes at. But today I got a bit of an eye-opener after reading a fairly detailed story about her in Broadly. Behind the baby voice, and the doe-eyed, air-headed affect is someone who does in fact know what she's doing and understands that her persona is, in a way, a bit of performance art. In other words, ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Hilton is acting. She's giving us a show. She's tried her hand at acting and at music while we all thought she was just looking for something to occupy her time, but if this story is to be believed, her dance card is plenty full. Always has been. From New York to Paris to L.A. and back. Rinse and repeat. She's been having us on the whole time. There's probably not a lot of social critique going on in all this. It's just something that happens to work for her and has made her quite wealthy and famous. From a business perspective, this kind of shameless self-promotion works. She's not the only one who's tried it, and it's essentially harmless compared to the horrific bombast of Donald Trump, who will not EVER get to be president, and whose only reason for campaigning is to promote his monumental ego.
He actually doesn't care a damn about the job of president anymore than Paris Hilton cares what I think. Which leads us to reason Number Two why Paris Hilton cares not a damn what I think: she's said as much. In the aforementioned article, she says, "I don't really care what people think about me." I take her at her word. My noting is of this phenomenon of faux celebrity that she's a part of and helped create. She, and the Kardashians and a bunch of others are a mirror for this culture of no-think. Of distraction. And, to be sure, a bit of it is fine. Just like a bit of McDonald's so-called "food" is fine.
You just don't want to mistake it for the real thing and make a steady diet of it. The effect, over time is deleterious. With that understood, I will say that like so many of us, I was fooled by the image of a shallow celebrity party-girl which is in fact, a brand being fleshed out by a rather attractive and canny young woman.
Well played, Paris. Not that you care a damn what I think. Nor should you.
Feast your eyes, friends. Maybe there is yet a functioning brain in there. But, as a friend of mine put it recently, "The brilliance only goes so far."
More Later
KCD
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