Hello, My Name is Kim and I’m a Celebraholic

The need would strike me at the strangest of places and times: in the doctor’s office, in the grocery store checkout line, or during a phone conversation with my grandma. I would get a whiff of celebrity news—an image, a headline, a comment—and the urge would overcome me: He broke up with her? She named her baby what? Who got sent to rehab—again? Like a junkie who craves a hit, I would grab the magazine or launch into a gossip-fest, greedy for the brief escape this addiction brings.

Trust me, I considered this a harmless hobby until I left it behind. Then I saw how many precious thoughts, conversations, and minutes I had wasted: sacrificed at the altar of celebrity worship.

I’m not alone in this habit. Type the word “celebraholic” into a Google search box, and you come up with a Twitter feed, a social network, a blog, and a YouTube channel, all devoted to celebrity news, pictures, and rumors. According to a 2007 poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, only one in seven Americans could name the Supreme Court Chief Justice (John Roberts), while two out of three could name at least one judge on American Idol.
No matter how many people share our affection for juicy celebrity gossip, this doesn’t make it acceptable for a Christian. A light in the darkness, a city on a hill, salt of the earth: how can a Christian woman be all these things if she’s watching the rich and famous just as idly as the rest of the world?

I remember the exact moment that made me realize I was part of a nationwide problem: I was browsing through a celebrity baby blog—filled with photos of star moms out in public with their children—and came across one of actress Reese Witherspoon holding her Halloween-costume-clad daughter, crying. The girl had been frightened by the paparazzi, and ended up spending part of her night trick-or-treating in tears. I caused this, I thought. Every magazine I read and every video I see that intrudes upon a celebrity’s private life is fueled by my desire to see it: without my eyes viewing ads or paying for magazines, these paparazzi wouldn’t have websites or publications paying for these images, and they wouldn’t go to such lengths to get these shots.

So how did I kick the habit? In retrospect, I realized I followed (and am still following) four steps:

1. Think and speak on worthy things: This celebrity really does have some excellent wisdom to offer us: Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Great minds talk about ideas; average minds talk about events; small minds talk about people.” I decided to shoot for greatness, to realize that every one-on-one conversation I have with an adult about any topic we want is an opportunity from God to encourage, uplift, and edify. I decided to use my words to “give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29). Idle chatter is fruitless, and slander—speech that is harmful to another’s good name—is a sin (Ephesians 4:31). Let your mind soar above the bright lights of Hollywood, and focus on instead what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, noble, excellent, and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8).

2. Use a worthy standard of comparison: It was so satisfying to see myself as superior to those train-wreck celebs. Rehab, again, seriously? Why can’t she get it together? That just showed a lack of understanding on my part: I was seeing a tiny part of that person’s life, the part that the media chose based on accessibility and entertainment value. Someone who snapped pictures of my life without my permission could use those images to create the character they wanted: a shopaholic, a negligent mother, an unhappy spouse. In addition to judging based on limited evidence, we’re also using a pretty low standard to measure ourselves. Hollywood is not filled with patterns for living, but liberal-minded, worldly, wealthy entertainers. The apostle Paul tells us to make him and other Christians our pattern for living, and that those who have set their minds on earthly things will be destroyed (Philippians 3:17-19). We bear the name Christian because we strive to be like Him, not one rung above the people whose lives we see a very small part.

3. Be satisfied with a quiet life and the gifts God has given you: It was fun to dream about living the glamorous lifestyle of celebrities, but my fall back to earth tended to end with a painful thud. It might seem harmless to live vicariously through the seemingly dramatic, luxurious lives of celebrities, but what it really amounts to is envy, covetousness, and aspiring to a life of fleshly desires and arrogance. Instead, we are told to make it our ambition to lead a quiet life, to attend to our own business, and to work with our hands (1 Thessalonians 4:11). Let us focus on doing our own work to the best of our abilities, not wishing for others.

4. Choose free-time activities with care: I’m a wife, mother, and teacher; aren’t I entitled to some rest and relaxation where I can get it? That’s the rationale I gave myself for feeding my addiction: Why can’t I put on Access Hollywood while I cook dinner or flip through a celebrity magazine while I eat lunch? After I kicked the habit, I found out I wasn’t being careful with my time: we’re told in Ephesians 5:15-17 to make the most of our time, understanding God’s will for us. Making the most of my free time meant engaging my daughter in helping cook dinner and returning to my old habit of reading good fiction after I’ve done my Bible reading for the day. I decided to choose ways to relax that are wholesome or beneficial, instead of harmful and superficial.

Today, I look back on my idle pastime and realize it became an idol one. I thank God for that moment of realization, and I try to honor Him with my conversations, comparisons, thoughts, and free time. Like that old song says, “All the vain things that charm me most / I sacrifice them to His blood.”