This tidbit on TIME.com speaks to just how obsessed we have all become with fame and celebrity culture. And, after reading about the wire services having already written Britney's obit, it kinda turns my stomach. People can now hire their own paparazzi to run after them snapping photos. From the article:

Even as real celebrities battle those pesky cameramen on the streets and in courts for intruding on their lives and trading on their images, some regular folks, from parents hosting teen birthday parties to Gen Xers out on the town, have decided that the attention could be fun--and worth paying up to $1,500 for. Cowher launched Celeb 4 A Day in Austin in November and is expanding to Los Angeles this month and San Francisco in February. There are similar companies, like Private Paparazzi in San Diego and Personal Paparazzi in Britain, and wannabe big shots in other places have taken matters into their own hands, hiring freelance photographers to trail them.

The trend is driven by the twin obsessions with chronicling one's life and experiencing fame. "We live in a culture where if it's not documented, it doesn't exist," says Josh Gamson, a University of San Francisco professor of sociology who studies culture and mass media. "And if you don't have people asking who you are, you're nobody." University of Pennsylvania sociologist David Grazian, who wrote On the Make: The Hustle of Urban Nightlife, calls personal paparazzi reality marketers, who make the act of being photographed more meaningful than the actual photos. "The goal isn't to produce a product," he says. "It's to heighten the experience of the event. In that sense, there doesn't even need to be any film in the camera."

I can just see this showing up on "My Super Sweet 16" if it hasn't already...

Posted by anastasia