Vanity Fake

March 22, 2007 — -- In the pantheon of American mythology, no one has so high a place as the self-made man or woman. And for every hero who has pulled himself up by his bootstraps is a gaggle of hangers-on whose only claim to fame is that they know someone more famous than you.

The archetypes of these "celebrities by association" are themselves legendary: the spoiled child, the embarrassing sibling, the gold-digging wife, the kept man, the handbag-designing trophy girlfriend, the sex-tape special guest. All of them want their 15 minutes; they just don't want to do any of the legwork.

Why we care so much about the comings and goings of celebrities -- why we spend so much time worried about what they're wearing on the red carpet and not wearing when stepping out of cars -- has been attributed to everything from the 24-hour news cycle, to the proliferation of the Internet, to post-9/11 depression, and our lack of a royal family.

Why we care at all about their boorish children and social-climbing girlfriends, remains, alas, a total mystery.

We care, says Lisa Timmons, editor of the witty celebrity blog "A Socialite's Life," because their lack of hard work offends our American sensibilities. We love to hate them for being spoiled and lazy, and as a result, we love to see them fall from that little bit of grace they didn't even deserve in the first place.

"We pride ourselves that there is no caste system in America," Timmons said, "that you can come to this country and become self-made ... I want to feel that someone making more money than me deserves it -- it justifies the hierarchy of the capitalist system."

And that, she said, is why we "like knowing Jewel slept in her car before becoming famous and Halle Berry was homeless when she was 21." It's also why when it comes to Brandon Davis, known only for being the grandson of billionaire oil tycoon Marvin Davis and making lewd comments about the actress Lindsay Lohan, "you don't just want him to fall, you want him completely destroyed."