The Religious Qualities of Celebrity Worship, Pop Culture

But my interest is more in the sort of intersections of religion and culture, where people might not recognize they're being religious, even though I would try to make the argument that they are. Like how so? Well, I mean, I've written a book called Sacred Matters that looks at these different kind of arenas where religious life can be found in cultural forms of activity. So like celebrity worship, I would call a religious culture that has systems of meaning, different kinds of rituals, possibilities for discovering your true self, a whole kind of value system that can be tied up. That's interesting. Celebrity worship as a form of religion. I've always thought of it as just hijacking the human reward system. Because if we lived in a tribe of people, a small tribe, and there was one great leader, the battle scarred leader who's seen it all and can give us the information, and he was the one talking, we would listen. That would be a person of great importance, and we all gather around and listen. But when you see Brad Pitt in a movie screen, and his face is 30 feet high, and this music playing when he talks, and a team of writers have carefully constructed all of his words, and this perfect sentence, and it's so moving and inspiring, and then we see him in real life, oh my god, it's really you. But meanwhile, he hasn't really done anything other than pretend. He's been a great entertainer, but he's given us some wonderful distractions. But it's not that he's led us through battle. It's not that he's figured out how to find the food in the water. This is not what it is. But in our hijacked human reward system, we treat him as though he is the great leader. Yeah, or even someone like Oprah, who's more clearly in that strange middle ground between celebrity and spiritual leader of some kind. So, obviously, it's gonna vary depending on what celebrity you're talking about. But just in terms of projections, our imagination, where we invest our energies, celebrity's big. But again, I'd like to talk about other things as well, whether we're talking about politics, or consumer culture, or things around medicine, that there are religious qualities that don't have to do with the Bible or with Muhammad or something. Right, there's religious qualities in that there's these very rigid ideologies that are treated like religions that you have to follow. And there's also signs that people will hold up, that they're complying, and they're along with this ideology. One of them that I talk about a lot is people taking photos with masks on, on Twitter for their profile picture. Like I know what you're doing. Right, right. We all know what we're doing. Yeah, well, I mean, that's, again, messaging and thinking about what values. Yeah, it's bizarre when you see these patterns repeated over and over again. Right. Well, and social media, too, will be the future of religion in terms of how it transforms and moves forward is an important kind of site for religious activity and investments and where we're really going to see the action, what's happening on Instagram, Twitter, and so on. Yeah, so when you say religion, that these things fall into sort of religious behaviors or religious ideas, you're not meaning as handed down from a higher power. You're meaning as in people fall in with the same sort of compliant behavior and patterns and... Not necessarily. I mean, it's not all just sort of compliance and... Compliance one aspect. Right, or conformity or something. Yes. It's just meaning making. It's how we try to live our lives in ways that can carry us on when we have to confront suffering and death and as well as issues around health and what are the sources that are available to people. And as I've said in my class many times, I think popular culture is much more of an important kind of teacher about religious ideas and values than the local preacher. How so? Because people pay more attention to it? Absolutely. And because they're more swayed by it because it has more of an impact and resonance. But it's a dangerous way to sway things coming from someone who's involved in distributing popular culture because there's so little thought put into the actual impact of what it is and so much thought putting into it just what pops. What gets people to pay attention. Right. Well, and money talks and money is sacred. What's more sacred in our society than making some money? And that's a drive... Again, so there too, we can talk about other religious qualities to capitalism. Well, there have been a number of scholars who've written on that topic and made those connections. So again, the action isn't taking place in the church. It's taking place in music festivals, Burning Man. This is where, again, I'm not making... I'm not trying to kind of overgeneralize, but I think very much for especially younger people, but baby boomers as well. Where do I get my spiritual juices? Episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience are now free on Spotify. That's right. They're free from September 1st to December 1st. They're going to be available everywhere, but after December 1st, they will only be available on Spotify, but they will be free. That includes the video. The video will also be there. It'll also be free. That's all we're asking. Just go download Spotify. Much love. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.