How Far We'll Go for Our Fifteen Minutes of Fame.

It was artist Andy Warhol who once proclaimed,"In the future, everyone will have fifteen minutes of fame." And in this day of hungry media vultures intent on filling tv and newpapers full of wholesale sensationalism, there are those who crave recognition and are more than willing to earn their own fifteen minutes.

You see,we are a culture of celebrity, as well as notoriety . There is the kind of celebrity who becomes a cultural icon, whose fame exceeds their own mortal existence while they live on in the publics consciousness for decades to come. Then there is the disposable celebrity: famous today, forgotten by lunchtime tomorrow. But to many of the unwashed, who live a dull, plodding, day to day , mundane existence; temporary fame can be exhilarating, even if it is brief .

Take The Jerry Springer Show for example, a show which brazenly,yet humorously brags it is the worst show on tv. However, it does serve one function; it gives those people out there who will never amount to a whole hell of a lot their little day in the sun. They can parade their sordid problems in front of the entire nation as Springer's studio audience insults and jeers them for an entire hour. These folks are by turns fat,unattractive,ignorant beyond belief and some of them should even take into consideration paying their local dentist a visit A.S.A.P. They're not just the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel, they're the scrapings of the scrapings, desperate to grab onto their own fifteen minutes of soon to be evaporated fame.

It's losers on parade and we out there in the television viewing audience are voyeurs witnessing these simple saps willingly debase themselves in front of a tv camera just so they can brag to their friends and neighbors," I was on The Jerry Springer Show." While the viewers watching at home point, howl with laughter and say," Hey Harry, check out the assholes."

Sadly enough, I myself have looked through the same slime encrusted window at these shameless exhibitionists from time to time, with equal parts of amazement and total contempt. But hey,they're on national television and after all, this is the ultimate goal for which they allowed themselves to be presented as a laughing stocks wherever The Jerry Springer Show is televised. But when all is said and done, is this really entertainment?