...console yourself with the fact that, by technicality, everyone's a freak.

Psychopath:  Also called: sociopath.       A person afflicted with a personality disorder characterized by a tendency to commit antisocial and sometimes violent acts, and a failure to feel guilt for such acts. Since I've been taking psychology as one of my A levels, I've found myself attempting to categorize the people around me, trying to attribute their current self to events in their past, making theories about how their upbringing has shaped them and the choices they make, and the person they are now. Needless to say, it quickly becomes apparent that, in practice, psychoanalysis is a lot harder than it looks. There's a guy I know from drama, who I met about three months ago. I consider him to be a friend, but at the same time, he confuses me so much. The second time we met, he seemed to open up a lot to this intrigued, almost-complete stranger, and basically told me that he adopts a different personality for different people, and constantly lies to those around him to maintain the front he wants them to believe is genuine. It took longer than you'd probably think for me to wonder how much he was lying when he said all of that, but - despite the obvious danger you find associated with any pathological liar - I was inclined to believe him. Helped by my gullibility and his skill as an actor, but still. Earlier tonight, I was talking to him about why he lies so much. It's... just weird. I honestly believe, and I am able to produce examples to back this opinion, that he's a genuinely nice person - and yet he seems to do everything he can to make people think otherwise. It's usually the other way around, when you find a dick from a long line of dicks pretending to be a decent human being in order to get what they want. Why would he do that? Deliberately, voluntarily worsening himself, to a person constantly seeking to better herself like me, is literally incomprehensible. I said as much, and he started saying that it's not necessary to be friends with other people in order to find happiness for yourself, when, I quote, "you can manipulate them to find the same result". He then went on to tell me about how he's relatively indifferent to his current girlfriend, but appreciates her in that he now gets invited to better parties - at which he can find his next, more popular, girlfriend. "So, you're socially ambitious?" "Yep." About five minutes later, he said, "It's getting to the point now where I don't even know what's real. I think I've been lying for the last half hour." Consider yourself mindfucked, Katherine. Quote of the day: Actors are able to trick themselves into treating anything as if it's fantastic. It's a kind of madness really. [Tom Baker]

...take it out on the famous.

The English are fantastic at jumping to assume we know the difference between “right”, and, “so wrong it should be illegal”.

Take Katie Price [Peter Andre’s ex, Holy-Crap-Would-You-Look-At-The-Size-Of-Those, Jordan] – a woman on a hedonistic mission to make the world a worse place. Famous, to put it bluntly, for having a tiny waist and consisting of two parts plastic for every one part human. The extent of Britain’s pure, infuriating idiocy where it concerns celebrity culture is epitomized in the knowledge that she was voted Celebrity Mum of the Year 2007. The stupidity blows my mind.

Going off topic, I consider myself to be of relative intelligence. Nothing special, but not stupid – smart enough, on the rare occasion I find myself bored enough to flick through a narcissistic piece of barely-literature such as Hello at the magazine section of Tesco, to realize that at least eighty per cent of the bollocks I am reading is just that. Lies, mensonges, deceitful articles of utmost dishonesty – call it whatever you want, it's still just bullshit. Why is it, then, that so many of my female peers eat that stuff up like nothing else? Too many times have I walked into a classroom and immediately witnessed a sea of peroxide girls in varying degrees of hysteria, weeping with jealousy over Cheryl Cole’s new hair.

Celebrity culture has never been bigger, nor has it ever been as easy, nor as apparently desirable, to enter into. From the talentless winner of last year’s Big Brother to the legions of “Amiee-Louise, 21, from Manchester”s on page three of the Sun, it seems everyone wants a finger in the proverbial, disgusting pie that constitutes fame.

So, what of the effect this bullshit parade is having on the youth society? How about, I’ll rant about a problem becoming more prominent amongst Britain’s young adults today and preach about its connection to celebrity culture, and you nod in all the right places.

Anorexia nervosa, the relentless self-hatred that accompanies inaccurately believing oneself to be overweight, and an issue somewhat close to my heart for a few years. NHS statistics show this condition has been becoming more common over the last decade, with more people averaging at age sixteen being admitted into hospitals dangerously underweight and still insisting they’re too fat.

It’s a depressing fact that the constantly changing fashions have always, to an extent, dictated what body shape is “right”, dismissing any other as disgusting and wrong. It’s the year 2011, and, unfortunately, bell-bottoms haven’t been cool for decades. This is the era of the skinnies, of the camel-toe-inducing jeggings, of cropped tops to show off the inevitable bellybutton piercing, of pinching non-existent flab on our own upper arms and wailing about uncontrollable bingo wings to garner obliged compliments. [That said, I am guilty of the last one. Maybe I should shut up. Oh, wait - nope, not happening, I have more to rant about.] All the skinny models we see on the catwalk, in everything they wear, seem to be saying: “I am walking on a runway in these clothes, which makes them cool. Copy me to be so.”

It’s annoying – who’s to blame, when a normal size teenage girl turns on the telly and sees Victoria Beckham with her beanpole stature, Keira Pretty-Cow Knightly prancing around with no clothes in the Chanel adverts, any scrawny victim of fashion advisor Rachel Zoe and immediately begins to hate on the horizontal line that appears on her stomach when she stands up after sitting down for ages?

Think about it. The materialism and selfishness and individualism of teenagers today, in most cases, are directly affected by celebrities acting the same. This idea that a person is nothing unless they’re exactly like them starts when someone influential with a fanbase strikes a pose, does something new, something daring [when you think about it, it must have felt weird to be the first person to wear tights with short] and says, “I’m right. You’re so wrong it should be illegal.”

Really, when you take a closer look, this delicious pie of fame everyone’s desperate to take a bite of is the quintessential Fruit of Eden. Initially delicious, satisfying, everything you thought you could ever want – before it turns and bites you on the arse, saying, “Haha, I won, fool.” How many celebrities are really happy, and wish nothing had turned out differently? Very few, I’ll bet.

At the end of the day, it’s people who make give celebrities their definition. Regardless of their talent [or lack thereof], people are made famous because someone sees them and says, “Hey, look over there! They’re cool,” and someone else says, “Oh yeah! So they are!” and then another person joins in, and another, and another, until eventually they’re one of those faces people enter competitions and pay extortionate amounts of money to meet. It’s an odd thought, isn’t it – without us, there would be no Michael Buble, no Adele, no MJ – and no Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, no Jedward. Oh, where would the world be without their maddening, Irish, charmless idiocy. Anyone would think it’s not possible to get decent, famous role models without the inevitable bad eggs coming in to ruin it for everyone.

Maybe we should just choose our celebrities better.

Quote of the day: Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. [John Lennon]

It's been too long...

It really has been too long. Sorry about that. I guess I just became more and more busy and, the longer I went without writing, the harder it became to bother.
And now I'm bothering, I have nothing I feel secure enough to write about.
Sorry :/
Quote of the day: Whenever he thought about it, he felt terrible. So, at long last, he came to a fateful decision. He decided to stop thinking about it.