Stefan Krogh-Hansens blog

Let me start by stating than I am no better than the rest. I also love to “hate” / dislike some of the so called celebrities that has gained space in the press during the last few years.

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but in Denmark we have seen more than a handful of these celebrities arise from some of the popular tv shows as the likes of Robinson, Paradise Hotel, “single life” etc. Some of these newcomer celebrities has become some we love to hate. This made me think about this phenomenon within the frames of what I in earlier post refer to as social groups.

The interesting thing about these celebrities that really break out of the show is that they do not fit in the largest social groups (they of course have some sort of niche fanbase), but in general we hate/dislike them because they do not fit in. If we look at the reality stars that actually are like the most of us, they never really seem to break out of the show and do something new with their career. However those that are different than the “normal” norms seems to get more exposure in the media.

Key here is of course positioning. They are different and bring something new and fresh. The fact that they are different “originals” is what got them casted in the first place and this is also what gets them promoted via PR in the tabloids afterwards. We love to agree that they are not fitting in our group.

So why is it these persons get hired for photoshoots, as bartenders, get free drinks at nightclubs etc?

First of all, the mere exposure from the reality show is of course an important factor not to forget about. They are of course hugely exposed during the time when that runs on TV. The question that remains to me is still, how they make a living out of the fact that eveyone dislikes them?

I think their “anti”-popularity is primarily driven by their fantastic PR. They are so good at getting coverage that they often appear several times per week in all the biggest tabloids. I think that to some extent it is just a good story to spread. We love to agree with peers and here is a golden opportunity to agree to the fact that this reality star is out of place. So this is why we want to have them at parties, bars, photoshoots etc.  – to mock them and to point our fingers at them while we all agree that we would never do that.

E.g. in Denmark there is a reality-star called Sidney Lee. He has roughly 9.000 fans. The counter fan group called “can this pineapple get more fans than Sidney Lee” got 28.000 fans in 24 hours!!! It has 182.000 fans now. To comparison the more well-known famous actor Brad Pitt has 27.200 fans. This clearly shows the emotions of “hating” someone is way stronger than when you think good of someone.

What do you think?

(picture taken from billedbladet.dk)

EDIT: I stumbled upon this article that I found very interesting in regards to celebrities (DANISH ONLY, sorry): http://politiken.dk/kultur/tvogradio/article983033.ece

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