Yesterday, I had the chance to witness firsthand how human the glorified celebrities of today’s Philippine TV are. During the recently concluded GMA Trade Fair Show, I saw how normal the guest stars are – checking out and playing in the booths, lining up for the buffet dinner, posing for pictures, etc. But what struck me most about them was the pressure they had of entertaining us – the guests.
The event was attended by advertisers of the local GMA network. Yes there were young blood among us (myself included of course) but I must admit that it was mostly a professional, working crowd. And somehow, I felt the apparent dullness of the crowd’s response to the guest stars’ performances. Whereas mall tours would result in cheering and howling throngs of fans, the crowd that night was a polite and reserved bunch. At some point, I felt pity because one of them had to ask the crowd to clap. And I somehow sensed how hard it must be to elicit a response from the crowd.
I guess entertaining a smaller number of people, most of whom may not really know or are familiar with who they are, does produce some anxiety and pressure upon them. I can just imagine how hard it must be to maintain a jolly and entertaining composure in front of a crowd who refused to cooperate in singing the song lyrics or in howling for each suave dance move.
This led me to conclude that in this world, we are all working to make a living. Some become famous for it, some remain in the shadows but certain expectations and pressures remain the same no matter the job description. At times I felt they were larger than life, but now I realize they are indeed the same like all of us except for Facebook fan pages with tens of thousands likes and Twitter profiles with millions of followers.
