By Blair Donald
Round Table Broadcast Producer

Celebrities used to be classy. They were role models, people to look up to and be impressed by. They were talented and beautiful, and everyone wanted to be a celebrity and get some of that fame and glory. Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, James Dean, all were famous and were so because they were talented.

Now, however, talent is unnecessary to be famous. Sex tapes and naked photos, drug abuse and scandals are enough to make a person notorious at least. People are willing to do anything to get their 15 minutes of fame. A family in Fort Collins, Colorado made the police chase a balloon thought to have their child in it (the child was hiding in the attic and the parents were aware) trying to get themselves a reality show. Vanessa Hudgens had nude pictures leaked online. Kim Kardashian made a sex tape that earned her fame as well as $5 million. Paris Hilton is famous for basically being rich and stupid, plus she has a sex tape too.

Jersey Shore’s celebrities are the most intelligent out of all of them. The stars aren’t book smart, but they certainly have figured out a way to make easy money. All they have to do is party and act like idiots and they make millions off their reality show.

Some celebrities today do have talent, but they aren’t the ones we pay the most attention to. Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Emma Watson, and William Shatner are all famous for their talent and the movies they have made, not the scandals and trouble they have gotten into.

We pay far too much attention to people who aren’t really working. We are paying people to party, and they are far richer than people who have actual jobs and have to work to earn much smaller salaries.

What many people don’t realize is that these pseudo-celebrities wouldn’t exist if we stopped paying attention to them. If we stopped buying the magazines and listening to the gossip about people who are total strangers, they would stop getting paid and might actually have to contribute to society.

But perhaps they do serve a purpose. These people aren’t role models; they are examples of what not to do. The stars of the MTV series “16 and Pregnant” aren’t what little girls aspire to be when they get older, but they are warnings against making uneducated decisions.

Fake celebrities make too much money and have far outlasted their undeserved 15 minutes of fame, but if somewhere a little girl is watching Jersey Shore and thinking to herself, “I have to study or I’ll turn into an Oompa-Loompa!”, maybe it’s worth it.