At work the other day, one of our editors read about Kim Kardashian’s recent divorce from a rather short marriage. “72 hours?!” he exclaimed.

Well, that would be pretty ridiculous (and sad, considering it’s not all that unbelievable), but the actual total on that endeavor was actually 72 days. Not that that’s much better.

That conversation progressed (regressed?) into talk about the rest of the Kardashians, “Is the fat one divorced too?” And what have these people done to earn themselves a TV show about themselves? I mean, it’s one thing for people to become famous on their own merits and then make a show about their lives, a la, the Osbournes, but it’s another for people to just be famous because they’re famous and for no other reason.

As always, whenever celebrity gossip comes up in the news, it makes me wonder, again, why are we concerned with this stuff? And why Kim Kardashian? Why are people celebrities, and who determines what celebrity is?

It’s understandable to watch a TV show and become interested in one of the actors on the show or an athlete or a musician. These people are thrust into the spotlight in industries that make a lot of money. It almost seems like we’re paying to become part of these people’s lives.

And if it’s someone with a craft similar to our own, we might take interest in their personal lives. We might want to learn how to do whatever it is that we do better. For instance, I’m a writer, so being a writer, I might want to read Stephen King’s “On Writing.” He’s a great writer, and I want to become a better writer, so naturally I should take interest in that. A high school athlete might want to learn from a professional’s training regimen. We find things like Inside the Actor’s studio compelling, because we learn more about actors, the processes they went through in making their movies, and possibly some bits about who they are, what drives them, etc. Through these things, we can relate to these people, even if in some small way, and I think that’s good.

On the other hand, celebrity culture has gotten a bit out of hand. We get updates whenever any celebrities get married. We learn this not only when celebrities marry other celebrities, but also when they marry “normal” people. We also learn when they get divorced. We judge them based on this sometimes. It’s not as if this is something recent. I remember it was huge when Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston separated, and it was huge when Bra- and -gelina became a single word.

But why do we care? What does it matter to us what these people do with their personal lives? And when do we end up with the right to judge their relationships? For all we know, Kim Kardashian and Whoever the Hell She Was Married To are charming people in real life. Why do we care that they got married and that they got divorced? And why speculate on why?

Paparazzi get a lot of garbage (and rightfully so!) for taking candid photos of celebrities, invading their private space. But in these people’s personal lives being broadcast for the rest of the world to make fun of, the effect is no different. We’re invading these people’s personal lives in our conversations. And in some cases these conversations are invading our own personal lives.

I understand some people are interested in these sorts of things, whether I am or not, but why does this shit end up on CNN? There’s no reason that when I’m looking for biased news coverage I should have to run into celebrity gossip. If you’re a CNN fan, settle down, that’s a joke.

And with all I’ve learned about celebrities, from A-listers down to people only I’ve heard of, everyone is still just a person. Everybody owns a bathroom, and everybody poops in a toilet in that bathroom. Well, then again, from what I’ve gleaned, if you live in an apartment in a major city, you might be sharing a bathroom, but you get the point. And that point is, we can’t forget these are just people. Maybe their lives are more interesting than our own or maybe they aren’t, whatever the case, they’re still just people.

I understand some people like putting their lives on display for the world to see. I don’t doubt some people are starving for attention. But when someone like Kim Kardashian or the cast of Jersey Shores puts their own lives in full view for the world to see, we really need to start questioning, what makes someone a celebrity? And why do we care?