Dead People in 1700s Were the First Celebrities

LiveScience ^ | 06 November 2008 | Robin Lloyd

[forkinsocket]

The modern obsession with celebrity started in 18th-century Britain with obituaries of unusual people published in what served as the gossip sheets of the era, an English literature scholar says.

Some researchers think the phenomenon of celebrity was born with the 19th-century Romantic movement in art, music and literature (think of works by Chopin, J.M.W. Turner and Edgar Allen Poe). Instead, Elizabeth Barry of the University of Warwick in England claims the modern public fascination with celebrities can be traced back to the rise of newspapers and magazines and the popularity of the obituaries in the 18th century.

"Different kinds of deaths came to be commemorated and you didn’t have to be something like a military hero or be a political player or be some sort of high person in society to get public commemoration on your death," Barry told LiveScience. "I was interested in looking at that process."

Widely read

Obituaries were one of the most-read sections of newspapers and magazines of the 1700s. They were intended to provide an account of the life of someone who had recently died as a way of illustrating how the life you led would be rewarded or punished in death.

However, the rise in popularity of obituaries actually came because the deceased were regarded as objects of scandal and public fascination — in other words, Great Britain’s first celebrities.

[forkinsocket]

.

[BlueStateBlues]

So the obit writers were like today’s celeb hosts?

[Emperor Palpatine]

Composer and übervirtuoso concert pianist Franz Liszt was one of the biggest celebrities of his day. Women used to line up at the stage door to mob him after recitals. He had groupies across Europe who fought each other for one of his gloves or cigar butts. He slept with half the young countesses in the old country. Plus with the long hair and striking Byronic good looks when he was younger he was a heart-throb who's photographs hung in many a young lady's boudoir.

I've always thought of him as the first rock star.

[This_far]

Celebrity is brief.
An insurance company brought cavemen back, but they were not sustainable on a weekly basis.

(no caveman bail out!)

[Cicero]

It seems to me that people were celebrity conscious in the more distant past as well. There was celebrity consciousness in ancient Rome, or in the Paris of Louis XIV, to mention just two typical celebrity scenes.

And Eloise and Abelard probably had the most famous affair in history.

[alexander_busek]

[...] didn’t have to be something like a military hero or be a political player or be some sort of high person in society to get public commemoration on your death [...]

Sorry, but I think that, to count as a celebrity, you have to have enjoyed a certain degree of fame even before your death.

Unless your groupies are necrophiles (or Michael Jackson fans.)

Regards,

[Covenantor]

And Eloise and Abelard probably had the most famous affair in history.
___________________________________________________________________
And didn’t that turn out swell...kid named Astrolabe, castration, banishment to convents, monastery.... man, that’s pure Jerry Springer!

[gimme1ibertee]

Ok...where’s the pic of Helen Thomas??? LOLOLOL

[Cailleach]

GGG worthy? :)

[Richard Kimball]

I have to disagree with the premise of the article. The cult of celebrity breaks out whenever a society develops enough affluence to be concerned with things other than the basics of staying alive.

This is an example of the cult of celebrity, but part of the continuation of a trend, not the beginning of it.

[Oztrich Boy]

kid named Astrolabe

Darn! Wish I'd thought of that. < /Sarah Plain>

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks Cailleach. The local garbage wrapper had a really sick serial killer's obit, along with a couple of Commie mass-murderers, so this is definitely worthy. :') Mitch Mitchell, who had been the last surviving member of the Jimi Hendrix Experience (the original one -- where was I when Noel Redding died in 2003?), also had an obit today. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[Vanders9]

They were considerably more literate, but yeah, basically.

[Vanders9]

Perhaps the more things change, the more they stay the same :)