Verified by 
Ever since I went to see the Beatles sing in Forest Hills, New York, with three college girlfriends (back in the Pleistocene), I have wondered why people get so worked up over celebrities. Not because the Beatles arrived in a helicopter and sang to some 20,000 people. But because one girlfriend fainted from exhilaration; the second peed in her pants; the third sobbed throughout the concert. I was, as they say, the only ‘man' left standing.
Why are we so interested in Michelle's Inauguration dress, Roman Polanski's dabblings with a teenage girl, or Eliot Spitzer's sexual escapades? I have a theory.
Those (millions) of us who live and work in urban areas can no longer talk to our friends about the girl next door or the boy down the street: our friends don't know one another. Our pals at work don't know our neighbors, our children, our lovers or our spouses. And those who
share our home life barely know our friends from work, the gym, or other social circles. The only people you and I are likely to know in common are people in the news-politicians, journalists and celebrities.
And here's the catch. As social animals, we need to exchange juicy tales about someone—to connect with one another. For millions of years our forebears must have sat around the campfire, whispering about everyone they knew. How Og failed to hit that buffalo in the head with a rock. How Ug danced in the moonlight like a gazelle. How Ig fashioned her hair or grass skirt in a new design.
With all their chatter about others, our ancestors built intimacy with one another. They aired their views; learned from the perspectives of their friends and relatives; set local standards; even ostracized those they feared or loathed.
We still feel the urge to have these convivial exchanges with those around us. But the only way we can connect is to yak about people we "know" in common. Celebrities serve this vital human purpose. They enable us to measure our failures against their failures, to adjust our values, and to form and share mutual opinions.
But most important, as we discuss celebs, we reach out to friends and family, unifying our relationships with communal jokes, thoughts and feelings.
Why my girlfriends were so overwhelmed at that Beatles concert, I still don't know. But their behavior has been the core of many good-humored jokes ever since—a form of permanent glue among comrades in what, long ago, would have been a tight-knit little hunting/gathering band so necessary for survival.
