Just in case you hadn’t figured it out yet, let me go right ahead and confess that yes, I, Candid Karina, am a sucker for the celebrity world. It’s true; the antics of the rich and famous absolutely fascinate me. I’ve always been a bit of a pop culture junkie, and although as I’ve gotten older I’ve gone from “fan” to more of “observer”, I still do love a good celeb. story.
I’m a recovering Celebrity Gossip Blogaholic, having just recently overcome my ridiculous addiction to several of these blogs. I do periodically still visit, but now it’s more of a “social drinking” type of situation.
But as a self-admitted pop culture junkie, there are events in the celeb. world that have a personal significance to me. Whether it be Corey Haim being clean and sober and having a new reality show, reminding me of a time in my teens when I was naive enough to believe drugs were something only rock stars did, or Debbie Gibson changing her name to Deborah Gibson, making me realize that even pop stars have to grow up sometime, I have emotional connections to certain icons of my youth. When someone I grew up idolizing, or despising as the case may be, re-appears on the Hollywood scene in some reincarnated form, it gives me pause. The memories of my years when they were at their peak come flooding back, and I’m forced to come face to face with my own transformation into the adult that I am today.
As you continue to read my blog (which I hope you will do, hint hint, nudge nudge), you’ll see that quite often pop culture references creep into my posts as certain events help to define where I was at any particular point in my life. I think these reference points are quite common in our culture (after all everyone knows where they were when they heard that River Phoenix had died, right? uh, no?), but maybe they’re a bit clearer in my mind.
It is always sad when I hear of a particular celebrity I was fond of falling into the tragic world of drugs, despair and too young death. On the flip side, it is always nice to hear a story of someone who has taken their celebrity, and transformed it into something completely different from what it started out as. Wil Wheaton, to me, is one such story. He is now a working writer and family man, and quite the pioneer in the form of celebrity blogging (quite different from celebrity gossip blogs, to be clear). Danica McKellar, better known as Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years, is another. I found this article the other day, about a book she’s written for young girls about math, "Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle-School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail". Danica left Hollywood for several years to attend college, and became quite the mathematician, even co-authoring a scientific paper that proves some mathematical theorem that is so beyond my realm of comprehension, I won’t even try to wrap my brain around it. But I think that’s just kind of cool.
What I don’t think is cool, however, is that Danica McKellar is 32 years old. Winnie Cooper is 32? This is the point where pop culture crosses over into my world and smacks me right in the face. 32. Winnie Cooper and I are the same age. And that age is no longer the cute “But do you like me, or do you like me like me” age. That age is 32, Danica McKellar: mathematician; Candid Karina: paralegal and wannabe writer…32. Whatever happened to our Wonder Years?
I’m a recovering Celebrity Gossip Blogaholic, having just recently overcome my ridiculous addiction to several of these blogs. I do periodically still visit, but now it’s more of a “social drinking” type of situation.
But as a self-admitted pop culture junkie, there are events in the celeb. world that have a personal significance to me. Whether it be Corey Haim being clean and sober and having a new reality show, reminding me of a time in my teens when I was naive enough to believe drugs were something only rock stars did, or Debbie Gibson changing her name to Deborah Gibson, making me realize that even pop stars have to grow up sometime, I have emotional connections to certain icons of my youth. When someone I grew up idolizing, or despising as the case may be, re-appears on the Hollywood scene in some reincarnated form, it gives me pause. The memories of my years when they were at their peak come flooding back, and I’m forced to come face to face with my own transformation into the adult that I am today.
As you continue to read my blog (which I hope you will do, hint hint, nudge nudge), you’ll see that quite often pop culture references creep into my posts as certain events help to define where I was at any particular point in my life. I think these reference points are quite common in our culture (after all everyone knows where they were when they heard that River Phoenix had died, right? uh, no?), but maybe they’re a bit clearer in my mind.
It is always sad when I hear of a particular celebrity I was fond of falling into the tragic world of drugs, despair and too young death. On the flip side, it is always nice to hear a story of someone who has taken their celebrity, and transformed it into something completely different from what it started out as. Wil Wheaton, to me, is one such story. He is now a working writer and family man, and quite the pioneer in the form of celebrity blogging (quite different from celebrity gossip blogs, to be clear). Danica McKellar, better known as Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years, is another. I found this article the other day, about a book she’s written for young girls about math, "Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle-School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail". Danica left Hollywood for several years to attend college, and became quite the mathematician, even co-authoring a scientific paper that proves some mathematical theorem that is so beyond my realm of comprehension, I won’t even try to wrap my brain around it. But I think that’s just kind of cool.
What I don’t think is cool, however, is that Danica McKellar is 32 years old. Winnie Cooper is 32? This is the point where pop culture crosses over into my world and smacks me right in the face. 32. Winnie Cooper and I are the same age. And that age is no longer the cute “But do you like me, or do you like me like me” age. That age is 32, Danica McKellar: mathematician; Candid Karina: paralegal and wannabe writer…32. Whatever happened to our Wonder Years?
2 comments:
Just finished watching The Wonder Years, and there was Winnie on the first day high school.
I never knew Debbie changed her name.
Great post.
You may make me a Celebrity Gossip Blogaholic
Sending bloglove,
Frances
I never really got into The Wonder Years. My brother loved the show though.
And I don't mind at all if you want to blog about popculture. I'm a closet popculture fan. :-)
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