Worshipping celebrities 'brings success', Says BBC News, Stretching the Limits of The Inane

"Around 14% said they would make a special effort to read about their favourite celebrity and to socialise with people who shared their interest."

(BBC News)

"The wicked pleasure, even though standards have already fallen very low, of seeing people compete to go even lower. Intellectual cowardice has become the true Olympic discipline of our time. A brutish consensus is being struck on the lowest common denominator."

(Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories IV, Chris Turner (Trans.), Verso, London, 2003, p. 6)

"The reign of speculative stupidity, of statistical stupidity. ('A majority of the French think that…'; '66 per cent believe Clinton is not in the wrong morally'), of expert language ('a major earthquake is expected in California within the next twenty years'; 'experts say there will be an economic recovery in the autumn'), of flagrant disinformation ('the theory of terrorist action has been ruled out'), of the blatantly obvious ('the good weather has increased the risk of avalanches'). All news coverage is a speculation on credulity and stupidity."

(Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories IV, Chris Turner (Trans.), Verso, London, 2003, p. 16)

"Michel's not depressed, it's the world that's depressing"

(Marie-Pierre Houellebecq to Emily Eakin, talking about Michel Houellebecq, in "Publish and be Damned", Observer, Sunday 19 November 2000)