Celebrities Acting Like the Rest of Us

Aug. 28, 2006 — -- Almost everyone has a favorite celebrity story.

My father loves to tell anyone who will listen about a chance encounter he had with guitar virtuoso Carlos Santana, and how the two swapped Woodstock stories -- obviously from very different perspectives -- while my dad struggled to hold an office door open for the legendary musician, trying not to sweat.

While bumping into a celebrity is not as unusual today as it might have been before the birth of the Internet -- or Paris Hilton -- many consider the Holy Grail of celeb encounters to be the photograph.

Imagine: A celebrity takes the time at an airport just before settling into his or her first-class seat, or puts down a glass of $600-a-bottle wine, just to take a picture with you, a fan.

Now Web site CelebSafari.com is tapping into that sense of validation, allowing Web surfers the world over to show off their celebrity photos and the stories behind them.

"The appeal [of the site] is that it's an unpolished, simple, community-driven site," said Jason Kilar, the site's co-founder.

"It's a fun, candid photo library of famous people hanging out with the rest of us."

With thousands of hits -- some days they exceed 100,000 -- almost 500 photos, and about a dozen new ones coming in every day, the founders realize they're onto something.

Standing in line at the supermarket, Kilar watched as people thumbed through copies of tabloid magazines, gawking at the candid photos of celebs on vacation, at a store, or in some other perhaps not-so-flattering pose.

It got him thinking about our relationship with celebrities and how people like to see musicians, movie stars and models not just in glamorous gowns and well-tailored suits, but acting like regular people.

"It struck me that so many people flip through the likes of People magazine and US magazine, often just to look at the photos of celebrities pumping their gas at Exxon," he said. "I thought it may be more interesting to enlist the community to post their candid shots of famous people posing happily alongside all of us ordinary Joes."