When I’m not writing about the recession, race and culture, or sexuality I’m writing about Rihanna’s daily steps for pay.
Yes, I’m one of many growing writers who dabble in the world of celebrity journalism in order to not dance in the world of homelessness.
Like it or not (I tend to have a mixture of both sentiments) people click more on the stars than they do on the stats on their daily lives. Because of this entertainment magazines will shell out millions of dollars for shots of celebrity babies and networks will pay hundreds of thousands for the wedding of a Laker and a woman who’s famous because her sister had a sex tape with Brandy’s brother.
That is, they used to.
For a while there despite everyone else suffering celebrity journalism was still soaring via the readers’ need for escapism and our society’s obvious obsession with celebrity.
But, it looks like rough times have finally met the glossy word of the glossy magazine.
In “The Brad and Britney Crash,” Daily Beast writer Nicole LaPorte sheds light on how even the celebrity wing of media is suffering.
She writes:
More recently, however, the celebrity media bubble has burst—destroyed by the recession, among other factors—leaving hordes of paparazzi, the agencies that employ them, and the magazines and Web sites that showcase their wares, facing a new, very bleak reality.
The Daily Beast recently quantified just how far the paparazzi market has fallen. Taking a basket of photos sold by the paparazzi agency x17 Inc. during the golden years, 2005 to 2007, we created an index that compared the prices those snapshots fetched then with estimates of what they would garner now. All told, a typical celebrity shot sells for 31 percent less than it did in 2007. The dropoff has been more dramatic at the high end of the market. Six-figure photographs are down more than 50 percent.
Some might try to spin this as evidence that the recession has killed the celebrity economy. But, those people missed the Kardashian wedding special that aired weeks. People still want their fixes and magazines still want to shove both the A and Z list down our throat…only at a discount.
Michael Arceneaux hails from Houston, lives in Harlem and praises Beyoncé’s name wherever he goes. Follow him on Twitter.