"I can't help it, I just swoon when I look at this beautiful girl. To me, it seems like she doesn't even realize how gorgeous she is because she just seems like the sweetest, most approachable girl-next-door type. The fact that she is an immensely talented musician is just icing on the cake. I love to jam out to her songs in my car... and this coming from a 21-year-old college guy who isn't exactly within the target demographic for Ms. Swift's music. I can't help it, I'm just fully crushing on this girl. It feels like Junior High all over again."
Celebrities.
They are
The Beautiful Elite. Even the
ugly ones are usually just
Beautiful All Along.
In addition to their attractiveness, the talent — be it acting, singing, or something more strange and out there — is what gets the attention of the media, who then brings it to the hungry viewing world.
Take a gorgeous person, inundate the world with their image, and there's the illusion of closeness and attainability.
Thus people are prone to fall victim to the
Celeb Crush, which can vary from hopeless, depressive mooning to innocent fantasizing to crazy schemes to meet and woo the object of their affections.
Teenagers everywhere of both genders will fall prey to the charms of the hottie du jour. (And not just teenagers, either, as evidenced by the page quote.)
Happens in
Real Life as well as in fiction. Fictional examples can include
Yandere,
Loony Fan, or
Stalker with a Crush, though those can also be
Ripped from the Headlines too. They may even be benign crushes, but
where's the story in that?
The opposite of this trope is
Perverse Sexual Lust.
More than a roomful of fans crushing on a celebrity could be a
fan mob, which is sort of the inverse of an
Angry Mob.
Fan mobs tend to want to pepper their crush with kisses while simultaneously ripping off clothing or props for souvenirs.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
Film
- There's that woman in Southland Tales who's obsessed with Dwayne Johnson, and tries to force him at gunpoint to let her blow him.
- Play Misty for Me and The Fan were about the Loony Fan variety.
- Korben Dallas' hotel concierge lady has a crush on Ruby Rhod. I just love him. He's so talented, don't you think? He's so sexy.
- Win A Date With Tad Hamilton was about exploiting the crush.
- Prince Char from Ella Enchanted had mobs of screaming fangirls.
- Borat is obsessed with Pamela Anderson.
- In The Love Guru, Le Coq Grande has a thing for fellow French-Canadian Celine Dion.
- Phil Foster from Date Night confesses to his wife that his "sex fantasy" involves Cyndi Lauper.
- Broadway Melody of 1938 featured Judy Garland singing "You Made Me Love You" to a photograph of Clark Gable.
Live-Action TV
- New Tricks has had a case or two of the trio being involved in a case where they fancied the person when younger.
- The Brady Bunch: Marsha Brady had a crush on Desi Arnaz Jr. and later, Davy Jones.
- On Night Court Harry Stone had a non-sexual crush on Mel Torme. Non-sexual...but still borderline stalkery.
- Analysed in Coupling with Jeff's theory about what happens when two lovers' Celebrity Crushes meet — which occurs at the end of the episode, between Steve's crush (Mariella Frostrup) and Susan's (Angus Deayton). Jeff reckons this phenomenon is the reason there are so many celebrity marriages.
Jeff: If you fantasize about someone else during sex, and so does your partner, and, you know, those two people that you're fantasizing about happen to meet while you're still doing it, they're bound to sense something, aren't they? Because they're connecting on, like, a virtual plane. So can you imagine what it was like when Posh first met Beckham? They were the epicenter of a non-stop, nationwide virtual shag!
- In Friends, a character not only has a crush on actor Joey, but actually thinks he is a doctor called Drake Ramoray, a character he plays in Show Within a Show Days of Our Lives.
- Rachel also had a Celeb Crush on Joey in 'The One That Could've Been'.
- In Castle, Ryan has a 'Free Five' list: five celebrities that he can sleep with and it 'won't count.' This causes problems, naturally, when one of those actresses works with the team briefly.
- The Suite Life of Zack and Cody establishes that London and Maddie have a major crush on Orlando Bloom (which caused a Noodle Incident) and both are quite enamoured with Jesse McCartney as well, when he pops up as a Special Guest.
- The Colbert Report for a long time had a Running Gag of the fictional Stephen Colbert lusting for the real CNN anchorwoman Soledad O'Brien.
- Not the Nine O'Clock News had a song dedicated to a woman's latest crush, Ayatollah Khomeini
. The lyrics indicate she had a similar thing for Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin and Helmut Schmidt.
- In Mystery Science Theater 3000, Gypsy's infatuation with Richard Basehart is a Running Gag.
Music
- Your Voice by The Downtown Fiction.
- The Pixies' "Make Believe" is a joke song about drummer David Lovering's crush on Debbie Gibson.
- "Superstar" by Taylor Swift.
- "Pictures of Lily" by The Who, about a boy who falls in love with a picture of a dead celebrity.
- "My Baby's in Love with Eddie Vedder" by "Weird Al" Yankovic.
Radio
- A male DJ on Virgin Radio Toronto is implied to have the hots for Dev, and another likes Jennifer Lopez.
RealLife
- In general, teenage girls will moon dreamily over teen idols such as the Jonas Brothers, Justin Bieber and Taylor Lautner. Likewise, many a teen boy has fallen prey to the charms of Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus and the like. In both cases, this can lead to Fan Dumb.
- Oh dear Lord, Taylor Swift. In 2010, some guys at Auburn launched a website called "A Hug From Taylor Swift", which aimed to get exactly that. Taylor found the website, and proceeded to put them through three rounds of challenges if they really wanted one. They aced them. After they completed the final challenge- get people to an auditorium and lead them in karaoke- she popped up and gave them their hugs. And kisses. And concert tickets. And put on a bonus concert to boot.
- Elvis, Michael Jackson and The Beatles had this problem in spades, to the point they had trouble going out in public.
- The majority of the cast of the Harry Potter movies have fans with crushes and have since the first film.
- Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby as well.
- To the point it was parodied by Looney Tunes. Porky hired chicken crooners based on each of them to make the hens lay eggs.
- David Letterman has a Stalker with a Crush type Loony Fan.
- Nicolas Cage has also had a Loony Fan break into his home naked.
WebComics
- Several appear in Dork Tower over the years, most notably Matt with Sarah Michelle Geller and Carson the muskrat with Megan Morrone. Megan refuses to discuss whether her baby is actually Carson's...
- Vriska from Homestuck has one on Nicolas Cage, complete with Stalker Shrine.
Web Original
Western Animation
