When I was growing up, my Mum documented each year by filling out a chapter of a book that some well-meaning relative had no doubt purchased when I came into this world. Along with a lock of my hair and a handprint my height, weight, likes and dislikes were written neatly in the book each year, along with one more piece of information – ‘What I want to be when I grow up”

So, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Of course, this changed every year, children are fickle and I was no different. My dream jobs changed from a ballerina to a marine biologist, from a paleontologist to a veterinarian, from an astronaut to a lawyer. You get the picture; I saw a few different futures laid out for me. One phrase never ever escaped my mouth, but is now uttered by children everywhere, kid and preteens alike “I just want to be famous.”

Paris Hilton (as if you didn’t know) what does she do?

On the surface this doesn’t really bother me so much. Who doesn’t want to be the best in their field? Back when being a celebrity actually required you to be celebrated for something, being a famous dancer, actress, designer or writer was a positive thing, a title attained when you had reached the peak of your chosen profession. In today’s context, celebrity has slightly different connotations, some tawdry, some tacky, some sleazy, and mention of the word is usually accompanied by involuntary rolling of the eyes by anyone with two brain cells to rub together.

I can put my arms around two people and smile

Yes, in these times of Heat magazine and throwing has-beens into the jungle to watch them squirm and eat animal genatalia, the idea of celebrity has been tarnished somewhat. It is no longer a private members club made up of the beautiful and talented, but a clapped out club in Essex when the bouncer has had one too many and decides to let everyone in. The opening of the floodgates led to the need for some kind of grading, a scale if you like. Now we have the A list, the Z list and a separate fenced-off area for that special breed ‘reality stars’ also known as “people who are famous for naff all.”

The worrying thing is that celebrity gossip is just so delicious and infectious that nobody is really safe from its grasp. I have worked in the beauty industry and with some of the most accomplished and intelligent veterinary surgeons I have ever met, and I can safely say that the staffroom in both environments is pretty much the same, a few umbrellas, a coat stand, a microwave and, most importantly, a mountain of well-thumbed gossip magazines on the table. Personally I’m torn on the subject: I disagree with the lengths the paparazzi go to in order to photograph people, yet if I don’t get my daily photo of Mary Kate Olsen holding a Starbucks cup my world grinds to a terrifying halt and the earth ceases to spin on its axis.

But where’s Mary Kate? I can’t see her! I can’t see her!

So why do people from all walks of life seem compelled to know the ins and outs of these people’s lives? Why do people who are old enough to know better ooh and aah at photos of Katie, Tom and Suri and judge the sartorial choices of award nominees? Simple. The world of celebrity offers us an escape and allows us to fulfill our most human of instincts whilst offending nobody. We all judge, and we all love a gossip, but it just wouldn’t be PC to tell Sharon from accounts that her arse looks the size of Mount Vesuvius in those pants or to tell Mike from HR that perhaps he should stick to a shandy on the next works do unless he wants to end up in the Priory. Instead we judge people we have never met, people we know everything and yet nothing about, because there are no repercussions, it’s almost encouraged, considered fair game.

Is it because we really wanna slag these guys off?

Although the caliber of our celebrities may have nosedived, millions of young people are still chasing fame. The same lure of escape is true for the high school girls who examine pictures of Katie Price and dream of being her. Fame allows them to get out of school in Slough or their bed-sit in Bolton. It gives them money, recognition, respect (somewhat debatable) and most importantly, it happens instantly. Why worry about studying for GCSE’s when you can wear two belts as a top and become tabloid fodder overnight? Why play gigs on the pub circuit when you can go to X factor boot camp and garner an instant following? Young people today are given the impression that anything is possible if they have a dream and want it badly enough, and maybe I’m cynical, but it’s only common sense to explore the fact that it doesn’t always happen. We can’t all be picked for Big Brother and we can’t all warble through an X-Factor audition (although granted that never really stopped the Cheeky Girls.)

Britain’s got Talent? In what? Astro-Physics?

So where will that leave our wannabe’s in a few years time? Will we end up with a generation of divas on the dole? A load of kids with no qualifications but a triple serving of attitude? Who knows, the Heat phenomenon is a recent one, and we are yet to see what kind of effect it will have on the children that scour its pages. Kids, if you’re reading this, carry on cutting out the pictures of Miley Cyrus at Starbucks, but maybe use them as bookmarks in your revision textbooks, because remember, even though you really are going to be a star, it never hurts to have a backup plan.