Piece of BritBrit: the media awareness story

Peter Wilby of The Gaurdian has a great insight in the recent Britney mediarama:

"Is this, as Peter Preston argued in the Guardian, 'mental illness as the new spectator sport' in which the journalists who bring news and pictures of her latest escapades - assisted by an assortment of unnamed people described as friends, pals, confidantes and relatives - are working on our behalf? Up to a point, Lord Copper. I've acknowledged myself that newspapers can now, from internet activity, get an instant guide to what interests the public, and Britney Spears is Googled more often than anybody on the planet. But we are dealing here with an industry, the celebrity industry, that makes it hard to know where reality lies. As Hilary Freeman, one of the Mail's 'experts', put it, Spears 'isn't a person, she's a brand'.

I would not accuse Spears of faking what appears to be a mental illness, any more than I would accuse Kylie Minogue of faking cancer. But as both cases show, the celebrity industry, with the connivance of the news outlets, is capable of turning any kind of illness (except, I suppose, things like irritable bowel syndrome) to its advantage. One is reminded of Oscar Wilde: the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. Spears's latest single, Piece of Me, shot almost immediately to number two in the UK charts. She'll be on the cover of next month's Rolling Stone. If she performs again, of course, it will be part of an 'amazing comeback'. What price the tickets on her next concert tour?"