Meet Jeremy. He's outgoing and fun, he always has something relevant to say, and he can belt like Harry Connick Jr; it's no wonder all the other kids love him. However, there's one slight problem: no one can ever understand what he's actually saying, and his belting voice is frequently off-key. Fortunately for Jeremy, the other kids never consider this. After all, they have the same problem that he does. They're toddlers at Rainbow Center Daycare.

Despite Jeremy's limitations (he hasn't gone past 'L' in the alphabet and sometimes he eats his crayons), he still enjoys celebrity status. The other boys surround him expectantly whenever his mom drops him off with a new Fisher Price toy, and—more importantly—two drooling, pigtailed groupies flank him on either side whenever he crawls into a new room. In other words, Jeremy's got it all. (The girls really do drool, though. It makes the janitor's life hell.)

How did Jeremy become a celebrity, though? After all, he is a toddler --- he hasn't exactly accomplished anything resume-worthy. Unfortunately, there's no simple answer. Celebrities appear in every context imaginable: high schools have them (Rachel McAdams in "Mean Girls"), supermarkets have them (Jessica Simpson in “Employee of the Month"), and even retirement homes have them (James Garner in "The Notebook.") One needs to look no further than a search of "campus celebrity" on boredatbaker.com to know that even Dartmouth has them.

In this context, a celebrity is someone who epitomizes a set of traits that a culture (i.e. a collection of people with similar interests) deems to be important. At Rainbow Center Daycare, that set of traits includes being able to yell the loudest and drink the most Juicy Juice during snack time. At Dartmouth, it includes being able to yell the loudest and drink the most Keystone during, um, anytime. Furthermore, it's not too difficult for someone to reach celebrity status in a relatively small culture. At this school of roughly four thousand, it simply requires a bit of self-promotion, a lot of web-surfing on first floor Berry (don't even pretend that you're studying), and an occasional visit to a Stats class.

So if celebrities embody whatever traits a culture declares to be relevant and noteworthy, then how do plastic figurines such as Paris Hilton, Lauren Conrad, and Kate Gosling represent all that's great and wonderful in our entire nation's culture? In this case, the answer is simple. Modern American culture (and, by extension, Dartmouth culture) finds fame to be pretty freaking important. Who cares that Paris looks like a dormouse with a big-ass blonde weave? Or that LC wouldn't get past the first round of "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" Neither how they got to be famous nor whether or not they deserve to be famous matter. All that matters to us is that they are famous.

Considering America's obsession with fame, it's no small wonder that the notion of social climbing to become famous has entered the national consciousness as well. Don't get me wrong: social networking is an extremely vital part of not only career searching but also general life improvement. Furthermore, the development of social hierarchy is a very real cultural phenomenon, and our government is an intellectualized version of one such hierarchy. Still, though, it's hard not to think of America as a large-scale version of William Makepeace Thackeray's "Vanity Fair."

Take Dartmouth students, for example, with our adamant desire to get as much facetime as possible. Some Dartmouth students even consider social climbing to be near the top of their priorities, right next to spitting out rote facts about molecular biology and nineteenth century English literature. But what does social climbing actually accomplish for students at this school? Sure, a student  (we'll call him Student F, for Flair) might be well-known at Dartmouth—after all, it's not hard when Student F makes sure to eat, study, clip his nails and call his grandmother in every single public space imaginable. But what happens when F leaves Dartmouth?  Suddenly, his social capital drops drastically. He's spent so much time adapting to Dartmouth culture that he's forgotten what makes him unique in the context of the "outside" world: his charming laugh, his ability to quip every South Park episode dating back to the show's 1997 debut, and even his ability to burp on command. No one cares if he was a Phi Delt, Theta Delt, Crappa Delt, Tabard, BG, Alpha Thetian, etc. The dude has a whole new social ladder to climb, and there's no library or student center to help him get facetime in this case.

So what has Student F taught us? Well, we need to be less like Jeremy the three year old (relishing in his status at the top, but clueless as to the new social ladder he'll have to climb in kindergarten next year) and more like Drew Barrymore in "Never Been Kissed"—the girl knew how to adapt to all that high school business, but she knew that in the end she'd have to go back to the world of sappy advice columns and Michael Vartan. In other words, we need to keep notions of fame in perspective during our various pursuits of happiness and make sure that we don't lose what makes us human in the process. Adaptability's also a plus.

There's a reason Lady Gaga decided to bless us with "The Fame Monster." It was really a warning not to be like Jeremy. Gaga knows what she's talking about. But really, watch out. I heard it's hungry.