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What is it about these air-heads?

It is bad enough that the media highlights the antics of the likes of Paris Hilton or Britney Spears - but 2 examples of vacuous and stupid people - but when the party of a 16 year old in an outer, outer suburb of Melbourne attracts world-wide attention [should that read notoriety?] one has to scratch one's head and wonder.

That is exactly what Richard Ackland has done in an op-ed piece "Hopefully, this celebrity is as quick as it is instant" in the SMH as he reflects on what has now become news-worthy:

"Don't put your son on the stage, Mrs Worthington. Unfortunately, it's too late - the little prat is already centre stage, soaking up our oxygen and even getting titters of applause for his gormless moment of show and tell.

Narcissistic, monosyllabic, barely literate 16-year olds have always been around. What's new is that now they are celebrities.

Apparently we cannot get enough of those who are famous for being infamous.

Corey Worthington is today's hero. He holds Marshall McLuhan's flickering flame of fame. Maybe his entire life has been compressed into two days of instant notoriety. And for what? "Hosting" an out-of-control party on the outskirts of Melbourne in which a mess was made, property was damaged and the good burghers of Narre Warren sent scurrying into their locked fortresses.

The drama of police dogs and helicopters is part of the overwrought theatrical backdrop. After all, a police force that douses people with capsicum spray at the Australian Open tennis tournament is a police force with a finely honed sense of the dramatic.

Corey Worthington and his pimples, his rotten cap and sunnies was spun around the world. CNN says that the story was the most read item on its website. Bigger even than news about a man called Mitt."

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