There is one question that is asked about celebrities more than any other. Well, one question other than where to find shirtless pictures of the various famous men and women. Everyone always wants to know the net worth of celebrities, be they actors, musicians, athletes or notable businessmen. The question is why?
Celebrity worship is nothing new, but now the internet has taken it to a level that’s never really been reached before, because more and more data is available than ever before. As such, people want to know everything there is to know about the famous people they adore (or love to hate), and other frequently asked internet questions include the age, height and weight of the stars in question.
Net worth is usually the most pressing of those questions, however. It’s not enough to know that these celebrities are rich and famous, we have to know exactly how rich and famous they are. We want specific dollar figures, so we can see how they measure up one another, and of course, to us.
I’m not quite sure what this does to our collective psyche as fans. We used to be content just seeing stars drive around in nice cars or wear fancy clothes to award shows, now we need to know exactly how much is in their bank accounts.
This makes sense when you’re talking about the billionaires of the world, nearly all of whom aren’t actors or sports stars, they’re businessmen (the world of sports actually just crowned its first billionaire, Michael Jordan, still raking in the endorsement cash after all these years). For business, I understand the fascination given how that entire industry is focused on making money, where the same can’t be said for acting or sports. The goal of an athlete is to win a game. The goal of an actor is to create a good entertainment product. Granted, all of these celebrities want to do those things while being paid as much as possible, but it’s not their laser focus as it is in business. Actors with principle, for example, will turn down a well-paying role if it could hurt their career. Sometimes the temptation is too much, however, and actors take parts that are horrible just for the paycheck, and it shows.
Many parts of the world, including America, worship celebrities almost like demi-gods. Many kids grow up wanting to be famous actors or sports stars, and when they’re adults, sometimes that dream is still alive. They search for how much their idols are worth because they want to imagine that they too could be that rich if they could only become a celebrity too. And there’s a pervasive idea that celebrities have become our stand-ins for fantasy or fairy tale characters. So says Alison Jackson:
“The religious imagery and fairytales that formed our shared cultural references have been replaced by the cult of celebrity. Marilyn is the goddess, Camilla Parker Bowles is cast as the wicked witch, Che Guevara is the revolutionary. Celebrities have become visual shorthand for narratives that shape our lives.”
In terms of knowing their exact wealth, I suppose much of it can also just be chalked up to idle curiosity, with less greedy motives. I can understand wanting to figure out how rich Robert Downey Jr. is to see if he has anywhere near the fortune of Tony Stark. I can get why you’d look up how much a WWE Diva is worth, just to have any sort of idea how much someone like that makes at a relatively unusual job. The same goes for how much Kim Kardashian makes for what appears to be doing very little.
Still, it speaks to the priorities of the public that a celebrity’s net worth is so closely tied to their success, and that’s the statistic people want to see about them more than any other (other than provocative pictures, of course, which doesn’t need an article which explains that fascination).
Business leaders can lose it all when the market turns, actors can see their fortunes dwindle when they spend it on vices that cost them better career opportunities. It can be hard to keep track of just how much money flows in and out of these people, but we as well as other outlets do our best.
Feel free to tell me your own theories as to why we’re all so obsessed with celebrity net worth, as I would really love to hear them.
[Photos via Getty Images]
