IN THE BEGINNING, there were no show biz stars. ?Would you believe? It sounds impossible, but it?s true. When films were first made, most of the people who appeared in them weren?t popular actors, they were just nameless men and women who did what they were told, no fuss and bother, and no huge talent fees?and egos.

Then, little by little, viewers of the first one-reel productions (many of them simply recording what people ordinarily did in real life, like crossing the street while trying not to get hit by the first automobiles) began to get identified by the viewing public.

Movie makeup became more realistic, so they stopped looking like pasty-face caricatures, and the best-looking among them emerged as appealing personalities?so, people wanted to know their names. As they made more movies, they became the cinema?s first stars, ending up lionized, pampered and loved all over the moviegoing world.

Medium

The same was true of television, which started as only a medium to advertise products on sale, then rapidly developed into the hugely popular, influential and transcendent medium it is today.

The first TV stars were generally ?borrowed? from the movies, the theater and radio, but TV has become so popular and pervasive that the reverse is now true: Many stars discovered by TV shows have become multimedia sensations, making tens of millions of dollars each year.

In fact, some of them have become so popular that they have emerged as political leaders, with Ronald Reagan even becoming president of the United States. In addition, the cult of stellar celebrity has become so pervasive that stars have become newsmakers and opinion-formers in their own right, with people hanging onto everything they say and do, no matter how banal or ill-advised.

Influence

This is where the Cult of Celebrity has become a negative influence in our midst. Hundreds of photographers and videographers hound and hunt them down, immortalizing their most insignificant activities from morning till night, which in turn are then avidly reported by the broadcast media in the many new shows created just for them, which are hungrily lapped and gobbled up by hundreds of millions of viewers all over the world.

Worse, celebrities are regarded as acutely wise social and political pundits, whose opinions on everything are taken as the new Gospel truth, even if some of these beautiful people lead such rash, brash and unenlightened lives.

Why would anyone want to know, let alone be impressed by and believe in, what stars think about current topics and pressing social problems? Because they?re popular, and their merest, most thoughtless musings and burps are automatically recorded by the traditional and new social media.

Excesses

Thus has the world been held in thrall by the new high priests of the new religion, the cult of celebrity, the excesses of which have become so negatively influential that it?s time for all avid celebrity-watchers to go into self-imposed ?rehab? to kick their unhealthy celebrity habit and vice.

How to do this? Stop talking, thinking and reporting about them, aside from their work and products as entertainers. Let them live their lives in private. Don?t ask them about, or give undue importance, to their opinions about all sorts of weighty topics under the trendy sun?they?re ?experts? only at being celebrities, period!

Why should we get so impressed, excited and mesmerized by stars whose stellar glitter is largely artificial and manufactured, and are mostly famous only for being famous. Why, indeed?