The Star Effect:
Do Stars Deserve
“That much money?”
Copyright Findawish.com
11-08-02

My Pledge | Sources
More articles

Introduction:
Before reading this article and definitely before sending an email, read the sources and pledge sections.

I have long been fascinated by how the general public reacts to people of "celebrity" status, the "stars" of our society, the people that have made it into the most elite and popular group of society.  Most stars have their screaming fans that collectively pour millions of dollars into their pockets allowing them to live an even more elite lifestyle which in turn usually makes them bigger stars.

Then there are the people in the world that feed off other people's status.  The news reports, the talk shows, the writers which include people that write magazine articles to people that write books, the photographers, the agents, the advertisers; the list goes on and on and on.  It is hard for me to believe that this is actually how society works...but, throughout the history of man, this is how society works.

When I actually start thinking about this subject I always end up asking myself one question.  Why?  Why is it that people get so excited over other people?  A lot of it has to do with sex appeal, but not all the time.  Take a look at some of the stars and you'll see that sex appeal is really low on their list of attributes.  The easiest comparison is to a business model because in reality that is what “celebrity” really means.  Hear me out.

Check out our Flash Presentations Here

First, people become famous when they are constantly exposed to a large audience.  Successful TV shows, for example, have a large following of people that dutifully watch the same show at the same time every evening.  People usually watch the same TV show to be entertained.  This is where the business model falls into place.  The biggest money comes from attracting the largest group of people.  Once you have that group of people’s attention, the money can’t help but role in because other people that can’t get a large group’s attention are going to want to take advantage of the opportunity to have the attention of a large group of people.  How do they do that?  Money.

Join the Disney Movie Club and get 3 FREE MOVIES!

Let me make it simple.  Let’s say you are a street performer asking for donations for your ability to entertain someone.  Where do you want to be?  You want to be in the busiest most entertainment focused and populated place you can find right?  Now let’s say that I want to sell soap and I’m standing on the other side of the street trying to sell soap.  A soap sales man on the side of the road is not going to draw the attention a good street performer will draw.  Unless I want to start doing things to draw attention to myself, which may or may not hinder my ability to sell soap, my best bet would be to pay the performer to help advertise my soap.  The more people the street performer is able to attract, the more money I pay him.  If he makes a mistake and isn’t popular any more, I can always distance myself from him.  If I am trying to draw people's attention and become unpopular, it is hard to distance myself from myself.

Click here for Free Online Games

Let’s look at it from a different perspective.  Let’s say I’m an average street performer.  I’m in the busiest, most entertainment focused place I can find and I have a contract to advertise soap.  This situation will draw attention and sooner or later a better street performer will come along.  Maybe my routine is getting old or maybe the next street performer is not only just as good or better but has more sex appeal.  The people selling soap are going to want to get the new street performer to advertise their soap because I now draw the attention of a smaller group of people.  Losing the contract may or may not matter depending on how much money I have already made and how I dealt with my money and star power when I was popular.

Post your item in the classifieds for $10 including color picture, full write-up, posted for as long as your item is for sale. Items under $100 free, vehicles under $1,000 free.

Another way stars indirectly benefit from their popularity is through the media that seems dedicated to telling you every detail about your favorite stars.  These are the leeches of the society that, unfortunately, do make the stars more popular.  Remember that in most cases, the more places a celebrity can be seen the more popular that celebrity will be.  How many times have you watched one of those news shows just to watch the very last part of the show with the juiciest new bit of information about your favorite star?

There you have it, three examples in a nutshell.  The trick is to both find a niche and stick with it until your stardom ultimately starts to fade away or keep re-inventing yourself and start using your popularity and new found wealth to enter new fields.

I constantly hear people say that stars don’t deserve “that much money.”  Quite a few shows have been canceled because stars “want too much money.”  I hear the same thing in professional sports…”too much money.”  Well let’s take a look at this situation.  In some instances that is correct.  I really can’t think of any off hand but I have said “too much money” several times.  The easiest way to explain this is to make it personal.

Let’s say that you are working for a company and that you make $10 an hour for skilled service based work (fixing computers for example).  Your employer’s expenses for your work averages out to about $20 an hour (yeah so this isn’t realistic, it is an example.)  For every hour that you spend working you charge your employer's customer $110. Assuming that these are all averages (including the time you spend working and don’t make money for your employer) you now know that your employer is making $80 an hour from work that you are doing.  Knowing that you work about 2040 hours a year you figure that you will make just $20,040 a year while your employer takes in $163,200 during that same year.  How fair is that?  Start adding zeros to those numbers and the difference is still as important to the employee.

Most celebrities do deserve the money they make because they can draw the attention of the large crowds.  If you think that this is wrong, stop watching TV and stop buying products advertised by celebrities or produced by celebrities.  Even if you could do this, most people won’t so you’re still the minority.  Celebrities win.

Still intrigued?  Keep checking back and I’ll tell you about ratios and why you aren’t rich yet (or maybe why you are rich).

Sources

I didn't see, read or hear any of these ideas in any media and if someone has already stated them, it is a coincidence. Kind-of like how calculus was developed by two different people at the same time in two different locations...only without having the importance of calculus.

My Pledge

As you may notice in the many articles to come, I absolutely can not stand people that have an opinion about something they know very little about or didn't take the time to research before giving their opinion.  I pledge that I will not write a single article about a subject that I don't know enough about to see several sides of the issue.  If you think I am missing something, I'd love to be the first to know about it.

Introduction | My Pledge | Sources
More articles