Why Everyone Should Have a Campus Celebrity

I just saw orientation guy!

I immediately text my group chat after I spot one of our many campus celebrities. One of my friends or I text this at least once a day. 

None of us actually know these people, but we act like we do. The list ranges from people who lived in my dorm, someone I had a class with or even just that random person I always see on campus. 

It’s almost like a game for us to spot a campus celebrity while going to class. The constant “you’ll never guess who I just saw” texts are like a never-ending guessing game from our long list of campus celebrities.

Despite not knowing anything about these people, that does not stop my friends and me from obsessing over them. Similar to real celebrities, we have no real insight into these people’s actual lives, we only know what we see on the outside. However, we feel like we know them. I feel like I could guess their favorite color, food or ice cream flavor. 

However, not all campus celebrities are the same. Any good campus celebrity often falls into one of these categories. 

The “Real” Celebrity

The first category is someone everyone on campus actually knows. For example, an athlete on the football team or that one person who always posts on the university Snapchat story. These people could be recognized by pretty much everyone on campus, not just my friends and me.

The Acquaintance

The second category is a person that I have met or talked to before, but we are not friends. These people may have lived in my dorm, been in my freshmen orientation group or been in a class with me. The difference in this group is that these are people I feel like I could be friends with, but we never stayed in touch. 

The Passing Faces

The final category is the most random, and it includes people I have never met and truly know nothing about. These are the people that I see all the time who my friends and I have decided are our campus celebrities. Knowing nothing about them makes this category the most fun. The people in this category are people my friends and I feel like we know without ever having any interactions with them. These are the people I think I could guess everything about without ever having a conversation with them. 

I personally believe that every friend group should have at least one campus celebrity. Having random campus celebrities has brought my friends and I closer together, and it provides us with entertainment throughout the school day. 

Not only are my friends and I always entertained, but campus celebrities also make a big school seem much smaller. Seeing the same person almost every day can provide a sense of comfort at a school with over 20,000 people. Whether my campus celebrity and I are always at Starbucks at the same time, or we have class in the same building, a familiar face helps these places become more enjoyable. 

I know my friends and I sound delusional, and we probably are. However, we love coming up with ideas about random people we will never meet. This obsession with our campus celebrities has helped us become closer, and it gives us constant entertainment.  

If you and your friends do not have a campus celebrity, it’s time to obsess over that one person you always see around school. You never know, you may be someone’s campus celebrity. 

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