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First there were celebrities themselves, emblazoned on the pages of People magazine (for the over 30 crowd) or Tiger Beat (for the under 16 crowd). Then there were the spreads of celebrities in their youth, big bangs and mullets. Then we kicked off our obsession with the babies of celebrities, with magazines shelling out about $4 million to give us a glimpse of Shiloh Pitt. And now, we're focusing our attention on celebrity gametes and preconception intentions.
Next up--well...I'm not sure anything can predate gametes. An examination of celebrity DNA? Celebrity karyotyping?
It makes sense that popular magazines are searching for the next exciting piece of information. After all, you need to be providing something that no other magazine is providing in order to gather the readership. Attention is a fickle thing and people are only content to stare at pictures of a fully grown Angelina Jolie for so long before they grow bored. Returning to her roots, checking to see if we could predict future stardom by looking at childhood pictures is an interesting game.
But after noting that everyone looks awkward in youth (except Angelina), it became de rigeur to look at the offspring of said celebrities. Is being parented by a celebrity somehow an indicator of great things to come? While magazines used to shy away from baby photos, instead focusing on the older children of celebrities (most of us, for instance, didn't see Scout Willis between the in utero years and late childhood), they have recently begun paying exorbitant sums of money for first pictures of celebrity babies. There are celebrity baby sites such as the ever popular, Babyrazzi. Even Forbes has gotten in on the action with their "hottest tot" list. The list is based on "media attention and their parents' popularity."
But babies are...well...boring. They cry, they poop, they drool. Whereas older children may show personality, newborn babies are interesting for a glance and not much else.
And once we started to grow tired of seeing pictures of Suri Cruise and Shiloh Pitt, our attention started to wander over to guessing games about celebrity fertility--who was using assisted conception and who was reproducing without assistance. Who was considering adoption and who was deciding to live child-free. Who would give us the next celebrity baby to fawn over.
This goes beyond sensitive articles about infertility, pulling quotes from actual celebrity experiences with IVF, such as Marcia Cross or the Dixie Chicks. I'm talking about the snarky articles about Sarah Jessica Parker using a surrogate or wondering which celebrities used donor gametes to build their family. The game of assumptions where we wonder aloud in articles about intentions and actions. It's reporting about things when there is nothing to report. I mean, there is literally nothing to report. As in, we know nothing about the situation and we write numerous articles wondering about intentions.
Is it any more unhealthy to wonder about fertility than it is to wonder aloud about what is going on inside a celebrity marriage or celebrity relationship? Mindful Meanderings had a wonderful post recently about celebrity fertility and how damaging it can be to have unrealistic stories placed out for human consumption. She states: "No wonder we’re so misunderstood. No wonder the world looks at us and cannot understand our pain, cannot imagine our feels of loss & isolation."
The reality is that these articles--and our support of them by purchasing said magazines--are no more damaging to family building than they are hurrying people into marriage (check out People's weekly heart monitor). At most, they're annoying to those of us in the know.
The Spin Doctor weighed in back when Sarah Jessica Parker announced their usage of a surrogate. "The bottom line is that no reputable physician, mental health professional, attorney or agency would participate in a surrogate arrangement if there was not a medical necessity. Neither vanity nor scheduling conflicts justify the use of a surrogate. In all my years of practice and having represented dozens of celebrities, there has been only one occasion where a celebrity sought to use a surrogate for the convenience factor. No one would work with her. Full stop."
And I have to assume that as much as even negative attention is attention and celebrities need the focus and interest in order to promote their careers,