You should so be thin that when you turn to the left, you completely disappear from view. Your hair should be long, curly, and constantly in such perfect place that Fabio would turn green with envy. Your teeth should be so white that you could signal ships into a harbor with nothing more than a mirror and a flashlight pen. You should live in a luxurious loft in the city overlooking a giant park complete with joggers, laughing children, and dogs. You should date only the most beautiful people who are fluent in five languages and know how to cook Thai food. They must spend their weekends volunteering at the homeless children’s home when they aren’t posing for Vogue. Your children should be prodigies and have a number one single by the time they’re potty trained.
Oh, and you must be involved in at least five divorces and a scandal before you fade away into celebrity purgatory where your last moment in the spotlight will be on Dancing with the Stars in a tiny outfit where all your long, lost Baywatch glory is put to shame with stretch marks and cellulite.

The life of a celebrity may seem glamorous and fairy-tale-like, but who are the people of our generation really looking up to? Divorce record holders and convicts with a lot of lip gloss? People who can’t hold down a marriage if it was the size of a movie script?

Nowadays you can’t turn on the television without hearing about this outrage or that. You can’t pick out a pack of gum in the line at Kroger without having a glossy, flashy magazine cover slapping you in the face with one word headlines, “SCANDAL!”

Why do people torture themselves with the magazines and television shows showing them lives they can never have, bodies that are too airbrushed to be recognizable, and scandals that would ruin most people’s lives?

Celebrities are given too much worship. What really makes Taylor Lautner different from the jock who sits behind you in English? The angst-filled werewolf takes his shirt off more?

What makes Angelina Jolie any different from the woman who fosters children to give them a better life than they would be offered otherwise? A size zero jean size and big lips? Nannies and a silver screen? An Oscar?

What makes Lil’ Wayne any different from that kid who sits quietly in the back of the room writing raps in his spare time? They both had rough lives and use their music to express themselves, but one doesn’t have a billion fans who worship the ground he walks on that is littered with drugs and guns.
How is Lindsey Lohan different from that inmate in cell block three? One didn’t get away with it. One got what she deserved while the other gets off with her fiftieth warning. One will live with her mistake the rest of her life while the other will let everyone else deal with her problems.

What about Jesse James versus that single guy that lives next door? One will move on with his life, no repercussions for his mistakes. The other lives with the guilt of tearing his family apart with his moment of weakness.

In almost every magazine you’ll find a section dedicated to the celebrities doing normal things in normal ways just like normal people. “Stars walk up steps too!” “Look! They have to pick up dog crap!” “Would you believe it?! He’s buying a coffee!”

What has the world come to? The media is dominated by airbrushed people who seem to do stupid things only to keep the public entertained. The stars are idolized for their downfalls.

If someone went through the same kind of problem, they would be ostracized from the community, shunned for unforgivable behavior. Even close friends and family would be rejected from the community like some kind of leper. Why are people so eager to forgive the celebrities they don’t know, and shun the people they interact with every day—the people they grew up with and chat with at the super market?

While the average Joe will face the same hardships that Brad Pitt, Ellen Degeneres, and Ryan Reynolds will face, the celebrities will be coddled like some whiney kindergartener who knows crying will get him out of trouble.

You can’t turn on the television without hearing about how Kim Kardashian is coping with her ten-second marriage, how the Obamas bought a new dog, how Lady Gaga wore a meat dress, Justin Beiber’s fan claiming he’s her baby’s daddy.

There are more pressing issues to be discussed on Good Morning America. What about the national debt? What about a food poisoning outbreak that claimed so many lives? What about the troops fighting for America so its citizens have celebrities to obsess over? What about the rising unemployment rates? What about cancer? What about obesity? What about homelessness?

The celebrities do nothing for society but give people something more to look at than their bills and divorce papers. Marriages should last longer than the five-second rule. Houses should be homes not castles. Families should be together, not spread all over the globe.

At the end of the day, society should turn off the Entertainment Tonight, close the People Magazine, and learn to be accepting of themselves by tuning into their own lives.