"Racism" is the New "Adopting African Babies"

Celebrities aren't all that different from us are they? I mean, sure, they get paid millions and millions of pounds to speak in funny voices and okay, not many ordinary folk attend extravagant awards ceremonies that give people shiny gold trophies of a naked man for pretending to have a mental disability.

However, one way in which celebrities and non-famous plebs are virtually dissimilar is the fact that both love following short-lived, rubbish gimmicky fads. But whereas normal people fads include hula hoops, Pacman and wearing your jeans so low that everyone can see your boxers, Celebrities are spending all their free time not eating, participating in wacky religions, adopting African babies and losing all their excess pregnancy fat exactly three hours after squirting out a sprog.

But just when you were starting to tire of seeing every 20-something year old starlet carrying a distressed looking Chihuahua around in a handbag like Paris Hilton, there is a new celebrity fad out there. Unfortunately, this latest celebrity fad is shaping up to be the worst yet. In fact, it is so dreadful that it has us all longing for those days when the worst thing famous people got up to was wearing all those stupid "awareness ribbons" at awards ceremonies. What I'm talking about is racism. Yes, celebrity racism has made it's biggest comeback since that time Adolf Hitler was named one of the 50 most intriguing people by the 1930's German version of People magazine.

First of all we had Mel Gibson who decided to get twonked on Tukkelah and tell anyone who would listen that all the Jews were responsible for all the wars in the world and probably also that shitty movie Crash. Then we had TV's Kramer who decided to forgoe telling actual jokes in his comedy routine in favour of just shrieking the word 'nigger' like some sort of ironic version of Martin Luthor King. Probably Bono from U2 did some racist stuff once as well, but I don't have any sort of evidence to back that one up. And now Hollywood's latest fad can claim yet another convert: Jade Goody, the flabby reality TV bint and apparent horrible, horrible racist.

Admittedly I don't watch Celebrity Big Brother but according to the footage plastered across every news program on every channel on the telly and the self righteous opinion pieces on every second page of every newspaper, magazine and internet column Jade Goody committed the terrible, unforgivable veritable hate crime of being a bit mean to a girl who happened to be Indian and also calling her 'poppadom' once.

Okay, so Jade Goody's racism is mostly just a product of shrill media hype. But the whole Celebrity Big Brother saga really highlights how swiftly this trend is catching on. Worst of all, it appears that being a dirty rotten bigot totally pays off. I mean, despite Mel Gibson's anti-semitism and widespread condemnation last year his vanity project made in a dead language Apocalytpo managed to gross over 70 million dollars at the box office. Similarly, Kramer's racist tirade inspired record sales of the latest Seinfeld DVD box set. And regardless of whether or not Bono is actually a racist, lots of people still go to U2 concerts.

Terrifyingly, it seems that it is only a matter of time until the likes of Nicole Richie or Lindsay Lohan jump on the fad-train bound for Nazi Germany. This time next week, don't be surprised if Paris Hilton's catchphrase "that's hot" is officially changed to "I hate Croatians" and Steven Spielberg decides to remake "The Birth of a Nation" and "Triumph of the Will".

When the inevitable happens, I suspect I'll have to become sort of wacky recluse, cut off from all forms of media like Leonardo Dicaprio in that Aviator movie. I'd do it right now actually but I'm pathetically interested in who will win the current season of Dancing on Ice.