Comments on: Why Are People So Interested in This Tiger Woods Thing?

By: Kev

Kev — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:06:15 +0000

Tiger Woods is a celebrity? I thought he was just a golfer

By: oblivious

oblivious — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:07:56 +0000

first I heard of this.

sticking strictly to dvd’s, hulu and mp3′s keeps me pretty sheltered and my closest coworkers don’t usually gossip about this tripe either.

work, play, sleep!

By: Christophe

Christophe — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:09:31 +0000

Curiosity killed the Tiger

By: Shen

Shen — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:54:11 +0000

Personally…
Nothing! they are boring!
Except the celebreties of my region, why? because they show actual interesting and unique dramatic art talent and even when its not their job! But even so, i would never care about their pictures or their lives anyway.
As for other people, i do not know, are their brain that pathetic?

By: Gail Pink

Gail Pink — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:43:58 +0000

No one cares except the media vultures who try to make us care by putting these stories on the air / newspapers / internet. Case in point: Lyndsey Lohan is all over the news, but no one really gives a crap. If she disappeared from the news tomorrow (oh please please) no one would sit around wondering, “Gee whiz, I wonder what LiLo is doing right now? I sure do miss her.”

By: Melissa

Melissa — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:57:04 +0000

It’s because communities and social circles have changed. In the olden days, communities were small and you could gossip about the townsfolk and everyone you talked to would know who she was and find the story interesting. Your gossip was relevant and not only does the gossip provide a great conversation starter, but it helps reinforce and spread the society’s morals and values and behavioral standards.

Now, not everyone you want to talk to knows each other. The girl you work with doesn’t know your cousin, so your cousin having an affair isn’t good gossip anymore. Your waitress doesn’t know the mother of the child in your kid’s dance class that might be pregnant. Your sister doesn’t know your friend that’s going to have to go rehab. But they all “know” Angelina Jolie and Tiger Woods.

The gossip is the same gossip it’s always been. It’s as important and fascinating as it’s always been. It’s just moved from local people to nationally known figures. The town tramp isn’t Mrs. Johnson anymore, it’s Paris Hilton. The town drunk isn’t Mr.Brown anymore, it’s Amy Winehouse.

By: ByrdBrain

ByrdBrain — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:29:51 +0000

neal -1 internets for not being funny

!elbakrameR® -111 internets for trying waaaay too hard to find a way to bring the Bush administration into something that has absolutely nothing at all whatsoever with politics…and failing to to it well

By: Ernest T.

Ernest T. — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:09:41 +0000

Is it the regular folks who are interested or is it the stupid media clowns who need to fill time on a 24hr news feed? If the folks in the “news” dept. weren’t throwing this out there 24/7 would the rest of us really care? I’m more annoyed by this coverage than anything else.

By: bandelier

bandelier — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:53:18 +0000

This column sums it right up:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/30-7

By: Gauldar

Gauldar — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:53:33 +0000

I wish I lived in a cave. Somebody gets in a car accident, and it’s written up in a police report. Tiger gets in one, and its front page news. there’s a reason why those two situations are different, but I just can’t figure it out.

By: tehpet

tehpet — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:33:27 +0000

guess i live in a cave. this is the first i’ve heard of it.

care-o-meter is at an all-time low.

By: Fran

Fran — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:13:39 +0000

Personally, I’m sick to death of all the celebrity crap. I don’t seek out any information on any of them. I only pay attention in a peripheral way simply for the pop culture trivia aspect for when I have game nights with my friends. Otherwise, they could all fall into a pit for all I care.

By: !elbakrameR®

!elbakrameR® — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:05:10 +0000

“Talking heads proclaim that the public is due an explanation, and that the story simply isn’t going to go away without a public accounting of who (Tiger) had done what (or whom, as it were implied).”

Where were these “talking heads” when the last Republican Vice-President shot an octagenarian POINT-BLANK in the FACE with a shotgun?

By: j martin

j martin — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:52:19 +0000

“Geez, the guy shows up in my living room at least once a day and tells me what to buy. Suddenly he’s all about privacy?”

HAhaha. +1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv2qLOiioPc

By: zazie

zazie — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:47:37 +0000

The answer is: Tall poppy syndrome.

By: Skipweasel

Skipweasel — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:05:05 +0000

Some of us aren’t interested. Probably many of us, possibly even most of us; but that has nothing to do with the media’s perception of what a story is.

By: Per

Per — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 06:41:35 +0000

I agree with many here: It can be a distraction. It can give a sense of drama and excitement. We tend to idealize the lives of others, and especially celebrities, so this is a way to balance that view. And we get to feel better about ourselves – “I may not be rich and famous, but at least I know how to not hit fire hydrants”.

By: Johnny Cat

Johnny Cat — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:45:17 +0000

I was kinda bummed that the ABC Newscast tonight spent more time on this than the decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. It reminds me of the media culture on 9/10/01 with Gary Condit and Anne Heche burying stories about spies being killed by al Qaeda.

By: DRob

DRob — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:07:22 +0000

I don’t really care much about Tiger Woods. But I can’t believe the monkeys will give up the Juicy Juice Cherry juice. That’s some good stuff!

By: Nicholas Dollak

Nicholas Dollak — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:01:38 +0000

Thank God I’m not the only one who finds celebrity cults to be a weird alien rite.

By: WordyGrrl

WordyGrrl — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:29:08 +0000

Celeb worship is on par with sports fanaticism. Substitute a few nouns and two guys raving about sports is the same as two tweens gossiping and cooing about some teen heart throb.

By: Dave H

Dave H — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:20:59 +0000

We are hearing about him for the same reason we are hearing Sarah Palin and her novel or about the pressing fear that Obama may lose reelection in 2012 because somebody in Virgina voted Republican.

Slow news day — 24 hours of news coverage. The talking heads cannot just go away until something happens. They have to find something to report and do it fast (facts be damned) before the other networks find something else more sexy to report.

By: chudez

chudez — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:16:13 +0000

Count me among the uninterested. I just know about it because media decides to cram it down my throat.

With the advent of 24/7 news reporting, news networks found out something alarming: there actually isn’t enough news to report on. So events that would have been relegated to the trivia section a decade or so ago are now Top Stories with Breaking News Flashes and In Depth Coverage and Detailed Analysis.

Sheesh.

By: Chakolate

Chakolate — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:55:59 +0000

I’m not convinced anyone outside the media is interested. I chat with a lot of people during the day, and when something really interests the general public I hear about it. Not a word about Tiger, though.

By: Neal

Neal — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:43:41 +0000

Tiger…. is this that animal that sells breakfast cereal? Or that old Exxon deal about putting a tiger in your tank? Did it get lost in the woods?

By: dutchboy

dutchboy — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:34:39 +0000

A distraction perhaps

By: Andygirl

Andygirl — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 03:00:20 +0000

Okay, that last comment sent before I finished. Lame. I said…I had to find out about Tiger’s scandal from coworkers today. Who cares?

By: Andygirl

Andygirl — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:59:14 +0000

I have no clue. I, apparently, do live in a cave?

By: Steel Phoenix

Steel Phoenix — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:45:57 +0000

It sounds to me like legally he doesn’t need to talk to the cops about it, and so he hasn’t. That sounds like the same thing I would decide if I ran into a fire hydrant pulling out of my driveway.

The media is just doing what they do. If anyone is acting shifty in this, it’s the cops, saying they just want to talk to him, when clearly they are looking for any charges they can come up with.

As far as I’m concerned, if they say he wasn’t drunk and he pays for the damages, I don’t see where the problem is.

By: The Slapster

The Slapster — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:35:53 +0000

Simple: Most people have boring, mundane lives and thinking they get an inside peek at celebs’ “fascinating” alternative existence somehow makes drawing that next ho-hum breath worth while.

@Church: You sir, earn a rofl! Well played.

By: smak

smak — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:30:18 +0000

Maybe it’s because Tiger Woods is actually a di¢k and could use some public comeuppance?

By: eni

eni — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:57:02 +0000

I am incredibly NOT interested in celebrities. I have to think very hard to tell Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt apart in my head and as a general rule, I have no idea what a celebrity you happen to mention looks like. “Which one is that?” is my general response. I couldn’t care less about Jon and Kate or Tiger Woods. I don’t care about them any more than I care about average people. Because they ARE average people. They just happen to have neat jobs. Big deal.

By: StuckeyJ

StuckeyJ — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:25:33 +0000

Im interested because the guy smashed a fire hydrant and wrecked on the city street, yet he gets to set appointments to talk to the police. Not only that, but gets to cancel appointments to talk to the police. If that was me, I would have been issued a ticket or even hauled off to jail for that same thing.

By: Church

Church — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:20:45 +0000

Geez, the guy shows up in my living room at least once a day and tells me what to buy. Suddenly he’s all about privacy?

By: O. Colfax

O. Colfax — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:13:01 +0000

Its basically boredom and people’s incessant need to complain about stuff. People are just channeling their inner bitchiness, and the 24/7 news cycle gives them plenty of fodder. Complaining is, and always has been, the world’s number one hobby.

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:05:45 +0000

Not to detract from the tone of the article, but one of the UK’s tabloids came up with the following headline:

“TIGER’S NOT A LION CHEETAH BUT HIS WIFE STILL WENT APE”

By: pwscott

pwscott — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:03:06 +0000

The Young and the Restless Tiger Wood’s World Turns with All My Children at the General Hospital. That is why they are interested. Freaking drama is all some people got. %(

By: Johnny Cat

Johnny Cat — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:46:33 +0000

The celebrity allure is a complicated issue, but Zavatone nails a large portion of it. Also, as I discovered when writing on the topic many years ago, people see stars in a rather intimate corner of their brain wherein they actually perceive them to be their friends (or nemeses)in a meta way.

So when things like this happen, they feel concern (or elation) for the celebrity’s situation.

By: Geekazoid

Geekazoid — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:20:07 +0000

Yup, for some it does feel good to ‘tear down’ these celebs. It makes the ‘average folk’ feel better about themselves and vent their anger and frustrations in life out on these apparently spoiled celebs.

Others just are fascinated with the whole celeb thing like they are fascinated with gossiping amongst their friends/coworkers.

By: Zavatone

Zavatone — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:18:24 +0000

People want to see people more privileged then themselves suffer and fail every once and a while. They are jealous of the perceived fame and notoriety of people put up in front of them who appear to be more successful, happy, better looking, wealthier or generally more advantaged than themselves.

They followers are jealous because these others lead what they see as “too good a life” and want to see them as less than perfect, just like themselves. Through their failures and misfortunes, they identify (or vilify) the famous person in the way they want. This makes the viewer more content.