What is a celebrity?

With the recent announcement of the passing of Steve Jobs, I am reminded of what I considered to be a celebrity. Many years ago Albert Einstein was looked at like a rock star. A man who educated the world to a new science that many of us today take for granted.  Newspapers and film crews all across the world reported everything he did. The man who changed the world. But today the world has changed but not the way it was meant to be.

Over the years since Einstein, America in particular, began to celebrate what they considered to be popular. That has evolved to the point a girl named Snooki on a music cable show is more popular today than Martin Luther King Jr. Just looking at the magazines by the cash registers at grocery stores clearly shows what is considered popular now; unwed teen mothers, a war between Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie, unfaithful spouses and who’s sleeping with whom now.

Over the years of medical cures, traveling to the moon and other planets, overcoming social injustice people are more concerned on what Lady Gaga is wearing today or if there is a new sex tape of Kim Kardashian. Ichiro Suzuki breaks baseball records what feels like every season but it means nothing compared to the press and publicity professional athletes get for using steroids or the University of North Carolina for taking impermissible benefits and multiple academic misconducts. Doing what is immoral or bad is now rewarded with fame while those who accomplish great things for the better of a society or culture are forgotten by the next commercial break.

I do not watch the Emmy’s or the Oscars nor do I care who wins. It’s basically Hollywood millionaires rewarding themselves. But the real celebrity who helps that industry become even more popular was also attacked by that same industry. George Lucas. He has created more technologies for the movie industry than any other person or company to date. Just reading about all his accomplishments on digital recordings, sound, special effects, etc. has Hollywood create movies that years ago would be impossible to do. CGI effects like PIXAR which was one of his creations, has created amazing works of art for movies and TV shows.

All the while as George Lucas was just getting started, Hollywood bosses and unions were pushing him away. But now they can’t live without him or his technology. But during the Oscars its more on who is wearing the most revealing dress, who is with whom. And while nearly every other speech is a political attack on a politician or program, the whole event feels like it is promoting itself for the next line of movies coming out soon. All the while the man who brought new life and spirit to the industry is ignored.

Steve Jobs is another man who in a normal world would have rock star statues like Albert Einstein. Starting a company from scratch, he has accomplished so much and revolutionized many technologies that years ago were unthinkable. Even coming back to the company he started years later, his ipod, iphone and ipad has moved technology and the lifestyle of people more forward in this area than any other.

There are many other famous celebrities all over the world that by today’s standards are nobodies. Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Edison, Claus von Stauffenberg, Jonas Salk, The Wright Brothers are just a few real celebrities with rock star statues. But the only thing that people really care about today is what Justin Bieber is doing. We basically worship the millionaires while it’s the poor people saving the world from itself.