Why do we love celebrities?

Why do we love to watch celebrities appear on “reality tv”? The recent finale of The Celebrity Traitors, hosted by Claudia Winkleman, was watched by 11million people.

Flicking through the channels, you can watch everything from Celebrity Gogglebox, Celebrity Come Dine with Me, to Celebrity Bake Off, Celebrity Hunted, as well as the classic that is Strictly Come Dancing starring… celebrities! We don’t actually know these people. But we feel like we do, and as shows like Traitors roll out, we might feel like we know them better, and talk about them more, than we do our own families. But what makes us keep coming back for more – and keep on talking about them?

Some suggest it is schadenfreude, the German idea of finding joy in other’s loss or downfall, adjacent to envy perhaps. We might think of celebrities as having fabulous, unattainable lives. Despite the warning in Proverbs 24, is there something in us that enjoys seeing them brought down with a bump in shows like I’m a Celebrity? But watching the celebs in the Traitors stunning castle hardly makes me envy them less; I feel more empathy watching them overcome fears or achieve victories, while being taken on an emotional journey to share in their small triumph. Their cathartic win takes you away from your own challenges just a little.

Seeing a person on screen regularly brings on something called the “mere exposure effect” where your brain begins to behave as if you knew them. The more we view a face, the more we tend to trust it, in a sort of imagined proximity. These parasocial relationships are emotional connections we form – odd, one-sided bonds where we can feel connected to someone who doesn’t know you exist. As we watch familiar figures grapple with challenges, physical, mental or emotional, we can grow to feel even more connected to them. Their humanity can suddenly be seen. Or heard, in the case or Celia Imrie in Traitors. Something of a national treasure, a solid yet sophisticated actress with decades of standing and she now risks being remembered as the woman who passed wind while Claudia Winkleman was explaining the rules. This is a woman who knows how to confess her sins; “I’m so sorry. It’s nerves. But I always own up,” she said.

Watching celebrity dynamics when they are combined can also feel almost addictive. We watch celebrities we thought we knew something about change as they form relationships and social hierarchies. As we see different sides to them, they also learn about each other – and themselves. Alliances and conflicts unfold on our screens, feeding our natural human curiosity about group dynamics. Would Joe Marler’s suggestions have been taken more seriously by the other Faithful if he had been an academic and not a rugby player?

Shows starring celebrities that many people know and love do provide common ground for enjoyable water-cooler or post-church coffee chat. Debates can be had in real life, online and in WhatsApp groups about who did well, who should win, all fostering a sense of social connection in a world that can feel increasingly disconnected. Even in church it can take time to build community – to move from greeting the person sat next to you to sharing something more personal. Opinions about a much-watched show – or familiar face on it – can provide a small building block to start creating a bridge between the two. And they remind us that we are all – familiar face or unfamiliar potential friend – made in the image of God. We are wanting our efforts to be worth something, longing for meaning, searching for Jesus. As we watch celebrities make new friendships, rebuild relationships, and form teams, we are reminded that whatever your status, we all have more in common than we might think.

As we move towards the end of the latest series of Celebrity Race Around the World, we see a show with not only stunning scenery, adventure and competition, but also a reminder of the race we are all running, which everyone can win if they run well. There are no cloaks and backstabbing, but watching the teams dash with backpacks from Isla Mujeres in Mexico, all the way to Colombia provides examples of different strategies and ways to communicate, the chance to see celebrities fail, struggle and even succeed sometimes, and good wholesome fun you can watch, and then discuss, with your family – and your church family. We may not know the celebrities in real life but maybe we do still have something to be grateful to them for after all.