Following the Zeitgeist
Minute by Minute
by Sarah Thurmond
We live in a world obsessed with the need to know. I know I'm certainly obsessed with this chronic disease, if you will. I wake up in the morning and need to know the weather. I pass by a newsstand and need to know the headlines. I rev up my computer at work and need to know my horoscope. My all-time favorite need-to-know topic is anything having to do with the entertainment industry. I'm a little concerned that all this needing to know may be ruining my life. (Let's not forget about the children!)
For instance, there's my job. I work in the research department of a magazine. I'm required to have a certain level of knowledge about mainstream news and pop culture. What's going on in the world is something I need to know to be good at my job. It's called "keeping current." But I can't stop at just having a general grasp of what's going on in the world. I need to know the deeper substance, the nitty-gritty details and layers of information that provide me with a well-rounded perspective on everything. Like my favorite TV shows. There are a lot of them because I need to know what's on TV, but I don't just watch my favorite TV shows. I study them. I spend hours finding out what others think about my favorite TV shows. What do the critics think? What do my favorite bloggers or the posters in my favorite forums think? I need to know the actors. If it's a reality TV show, I need to know the participants. Who are they? Where are they from? What did they do before this TV show? Any arrests, divorces, favorite hangouts? Who created the show? Was it a spinoff? If so, I need to know more about THAT show. Keep in mind I'm doing this on company time. If I put as much effort into my job as I did finding out who was going to play Miss Ellie in the movie version of Dallas I would have my own magazine. (Hmm…annabelle would be a good name.)
My need to know carries over to my other affliction, my need to share what I know. Over the cubicle wall I need to share any breaking news with my coworker because he, too, suffers from the need to know. Sometimes we try to outmatch each other's knowledge, but usually our conversations go something like this:
"Hey, Ben."
"What?"
"Isaac Hayes quit South Park."
"I know."Ben is one of these people that know everything before anyone else does. I asked him about this one day, "Ben," I said. "How do you know everything? Are you lying? Do you just pretend to know or do you really know?" He snickered. Then he forwarded to me an email from a friend of his that lives in England. The email was a link to a newsflash about Eva Green being cast as the new Bond girl in the remake of Casino Royale, which is starring the new Bond, Daniel Craig, who last year was rumored to have had an affair with Sienna Miller when she broke off her engagement to Jude Law after he had a fling with his nanny... Anyway, Ben's friend wrote, "I'm in heaven!" So that's it. Ben comes in everyday, checks his email, and receives knowledge that's five hours ahead of mine.
Bastard!
I'll be the first to admit that our behavior is obsessive. This is why I'm concerned. Obsessive behavior, ahem, is not good. Why the need to know and the need to share? Is it just a form of procrastination? Does it make me feel superior to find out before everyone else that Kirk Cameron, who I used to adore, is now an evangelist?
Even before I got a job where I spend all day Googling, I was obsessive with my pop culture knowledge. I remember going over to my grandmother's house and looking at the pretty pictures of the pretty people in People Weekly. I remember flipping through the Sunday newspaper to get to my favorite section, the Star magazine supplement. I could name all of Elizabeth Taylor's husbands before I could name all of the states. I remember begging my mother to take me to the grocery store so I could read the latest Creem. I just had to know what goes on in the personal lives of my favorite rock gods. (Thank God for the Internet! Now I just go to my favorite band's web site or myspace.com if I feel the urge for some cyberspace stalking.)
Cary Tennis, who writes the advice column "Since You Asked" on salon.com addressed "need to know-itis" in his response to a person also obsessed with celebrity gossip.
"We are humans and humans hunger for the divine," wrote Tennis. "Our religions have failed us, our philosophies have failed us, our government has failed us…Embrace celebrity worship! Do not be ashamed! It is a real hunger that you are feeding! … So if I were you, rather than fighting your interest in celebrity lives, I would try to build on it, take it to a deeper level, make an art of it."
Make an art of it? Does that include stalking?
I asked Roger Hodge, editor of Harper's Magazine and erstwhile writer of Harper's "Week in Review," why he thinks people are fascinated by the lives of celebrities. "What else are people going to talk about," he said. "Politics?" Maybe if Mary Hart was anchoring the nightly news?
In this day and age when there's so much information so easy to access and so ready to be gained it seems like everyone is needing to know and wanting to share their knowledge. While I'm concerned about how much time I spend gathering my pop candy, I'm also a little worried about the kind of knowledge we're all gathering. This information seems a tad, um, ready-made for Trivia Pursuit. Like a candy wrapper, it's dispensable. Shouldn't we all be finding out about stuff that is more useful and lasting, like information on how to save our planet?
I think Tennis is correct about embracing our needs to know, be it celebrity or whatever tickles our fancy. It provides a respite from life's absurdity and randomness. Let's face it, the news—whether it be the box office or the ballot box—can be predictable, which I find comforting. And I like the idea of living vicariously through someone else. Let them suffer after a crazy late-night binge at Bungalow 8. I'll tone down the competition, though, and let someone else be first to know. There's just too much pressure to keep up with everything.
For Sarah's list of links that feed her information addiction, check out our links page
