What does it indicate about a society that idolizes empty headed celebrities rather than other great men and woman,living or dead?
Not much- when one considers that the inventors (as an example), whether successful or not, are the people who I admire.
Unfortunately it was clebrities and athletes who started large salaries which then were picked up by corporations leading to these huge incomes. The pay would not be bad if it was shared with the ones making it possible ie the workers.These clebrities were made by their fan base who using the products the latter sold ,used or protrayed made a large amount of money earning them the large incomes! Talent or value were not the elements that made some of these people. It was just plain idol worship that worked.
I can't really give you the derogatory response that you probably want, but I would think that for the same reason you think of them as 'celebrities' is why people want to have something that is obviously beyond the mundane existence of day to day life. Not sure who you think of as 'great men and women', but most people that are considered 'great' and are not celebrities have dramatic, and often tragic life stories. Or worse, the same day to day slog with more interesting results. I can't picture that the life of Tesla was an amazing, exciting day to day funland....and being him would have probably sucked, and yet he was an incredible mind with far encompassing discoveries.
Depends on the celebrity. I don't idolize the Kim Kardashians or the Justin Beibers of the world. Those people offer nothing of lasting value to the world IMHO. Here is a list of some of the people who I consider to be my celebtity idols:
To me it indicates a lack of intelligence in society. Celebrities are ordinary people just like everybody else. They put there pants on one leg at a time. But to idolize them is beyond my understanding. Take actors or example. Their job in life is to pretend to be something their not. I idolize and value the opinions of my plumber, cable guy, mechanic..... etc a whole lot more. They are people who get shit done.
How about football players, hockey players, baseball players, and so on? I'm not doing the typical 'what about' gambit here. It's more like what a person does and their capacity to think things through rationally and intelligently do not correlate. It is far too easy to discount people base upon our prejudices and suppositions rather than listening just to what is being said and making assessments accordingly.
For this to be even slightly reasonable, you need to provide evidence to support the claim that 'all' celebrities are empty-headed. I assure you that is not the case. I suspect you may be thinking primarily of people in the entertainment field more than celebs in general, is that right?
Don't get me wrong here. I am amazed at how little notice is given to the people who actually make this world work, make the discoveries, and provide answers to long unanswered questions, but to make such a sweeping generality is not logical.
Your assumption was partially correct about entertainers, but I did not use that terminology due to the fact that I will not qualify useless people like the Kardashians as entertainers or moronic athletes that can not even speak proper English