Celebrity

The term prominence (from Latin: prominentia = the outstanding; from pro minere) is usually used in everyday life to designate the totality of outstanding personalities, but can also neutrally mean the extent of individual public awareness, however acquired, and then be applied not only to people but also, for example, to places. The word has only come into use in German since the beginning of the 20th century and is an equivalent to the literally equivalent term Eminenz, which is traditionally restricted to addressing high Catholic dignitaries.

Celebrities, or colloquially celebrities [ˈprɔmɪs], celebrities or also VIPs (English abbreviation for Very Important Person) are mainly those people who are known for their public appearances. Celebrities are often actors, musicians and other entertainers who are frequently reported on in the press or on television. Politicians or athletes can also be prominent. In recent organizational theory and management research, it is assumed that CEOs of large companies also achieve widespread public notoriety. In addition to individual celebrity, collective celebrity is now also being researched, in that it is assumed that entire companies can become prominent.

Legal, Right to Privacy

Person of public life is a legal term in German, Austrian and Swiss civil law used in case law on various laws to delimit the right to privacy against public reporting by the media. Comparable is "person of contemporary history", which is mentioned e.g. in the German Art Copyright Act and the Stasi Records Act. (See also paparazzo).

Inflationary use

In everyday language, pseudo-celebrities or (in reference to the B-movie) B-celebrities - in Switzerland also known as cervelat celebrities in reference to the cervelat - are persons who, through public scandals, spectacular television appearances or other events, attract headline-grabbing attention - often only for a short time - without, however, gaining any reputation in the process. They hardly remain internationally known, but are only known in special circles or through individual events or broadcasts. B celebrities also include lesser-known people who tend to attract attention because of a title of nobility or because of affairs with celebrities.

Television formats such as Deutschland sucht den Superstar, Big Brother, Ich bin ein Star - Holt mich hier raus! (I'm a Star - Get Me Out of Here!) or scandals blown up by the media generate such a high number of allegedly prominent people that there is increasingly talk of "C celebrities", "D celebrities" to "Z celebrities", i.e. people whose celebrity is perceived as even more fast-moving and insignificant than that of so-called B celebrities. Classic activities or characteristics that could justify real celebrity are hardly recognizable here, were never there, or they are long in the past, which is often the case especially with the candidates of Ich bin ein Star - Holt mich hier raus!