(April 13, 2007) — The lure of Lohan. The intrigue of Anna Nicole. The appeal of celebrity, like the infamous eye-watering stench of the Amorphophallus titanium plant to flesh flies and carrion beetles, entices us all. I myself claim no immunity to this sickening social disease, which psychologists have now actually given a name to: Celebrity Worship Syndrome. No one is more up to date and informed about Lindsay Lohan’s latest nipple slip or Britney Spears most recent trip to rehab than I, and no one is more ashamed. I don’t live in Care-A-Lot, and I’m certainly not a Care Bear, so why can’t I tear my eyes away from the video of Spears, head newly shaved, attacking an SUV with an umbrella like a mother grizzly defending her young? Why is it we care more about Colin Farrel than Colin Powell? Why is it that shows such as I Want a Famous Face and The Fabulous Life of (fill in the blank) even exist? When Tom Cruise is finished building the ark, who’s going to have the last laugh then? And why does Fergie’s face look like that of a carved pumpkin? I’ll leave those questions for some sociology student’s master’s thesis somewhere, but until then, we need to recognize that our obsession with celebrities, much like our dependence on electronic means for communication and socializing, is turning us into a society of people out of touch with the real world and each other. When girls are expecting their boyfriends to make a big deal about asking them to prom (even though it’s already obvious they’re going together) because they say Stephen adorn Kristen’s driveway with rose petals and had fireworks in her backyard when asking her to prom on Laguna Beach , we know that the influence of our television heroes are too much for our easily impressionable teenage brains to handle. Ac tors are not only paid millions of dollars per film for doing their jobs (and much of the time, doing it badly), but somehow we also assume they’re worthy of our high esteem. Forty years ago, Alfred Hitchcock said that actors, the objects of our devotion and obsession, were to him mere props, only there to do what he told them to. These days, we seem to forget this all-too-valid sentiment.