‘Love it or hate it, celebrity is one of the dominant features of modern life’, Fred Inglis pronounces in his book A Short History of Celebrity (2010). His statement is undoubtedly true: on television and the internet we are continually confronted with celebrities. Even animals can become stars. People who are not famous want to become famous. Fame, the process of rising above the masses, has become desirable. Hollywood in particular is responsible for an almost infinite procession of stars. It seems as if people can never get enough. Magazines, filled to the brim with celebrity gossip, are devoured all over the world. It is certainly not far-fetched along with sociologist Robert van Krieken to label the western world as a ‘Celebrity Society’: our economic, political and social existence has become organised around celebrities. This phenomenon is, according to him, an indisputable product of modernity.

‘Famous’ is explained in the Oxford English Dictionary as: ‘Celebrated in fame or public report; much talked about, renowned’. Two aspects are implied in this definition: a person should be widely known, and he or she should do something that is valued positively. This explanation is, however, not quite satisfactory. Fame is not something that can be acquired independently; it is something that is attributed by cultural institutions or ‘intermediaries’. As such, the phenomenon of celebrity is related to what the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu refers to as attributed ‘symbolic capital’. Art does not have any intrinsic quality. According to Bourdieu the symbolic value thereof is attributed by institutions.

Something similar can be said about celebrity. The German sociologist Max Weber describes charisma as ‘a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities.’ Regardless of whether we understand celebrity as charisma or as a form of capital, it is undoubtedly attributed by a public. Fame is not essentially related to merit. Paris Hilton presents a good example. With regard to her it is tempting to recall Daniel J. Boorstin's well-known definition of celebrity as somebody who is predominantly ‘known for being well-known’. Certainly not everybody sees Hilton in a positive light.