What Would You Do for Attention?

What would you do to get media attention? Would you splash acid all over your face? Fake a kidnapping? Throw a (justifiable) fit over your 6 year old’s cheerleader lyrics? If you’ve seen the news at all in the last 48 hours, it seems like every no-name has their mug on TV, soaking up attention over a real non-issue (though I will stand on the side of the mom who’s daughter was cheering adult lyrics on her cheerleading squad). It seems like as long as you can come up with something, you will end up in national news.

I thought we were done with the whole litter of kids thing and banking on young children, too. Nope, apparently not. Besides the whole “Kate Plus Eight” fiasco, there are about 2 or 3 other multiples TV shows where parents can gaily cash in on their tykes. There’s a show about a guy who has 3 wives who are supposedly all sisters (can’t wait for that one…), and people are even getting media attention for having too many dogs or a trashed up house.

It seems like anybody nowadays can be a star, you just have to reach out to the media and they’ll either give you your own reality show or give you a 5 minute interview on morning TV. I can understand media attention to catch a criminal or save a kidnapped child, but I definitely do not see the point of wasting TV viewers’ time on stories about America’s largest and smallest dogs and how they got to be so huge (or tiny).

Yes, entertaining, but we are really reaching out to get media play and it seems some of us will go to all means to get a little attention and 15 minutes of fame. Why can’t we just be satisfied posting our lives on the internet like normal people?