Celebrity Baby Math
By raincoaster
I was moderately good at math when I was in school, but then as always profoundly lazy and am thus, very glad that The Guardian’s Hadley Freeman, the only UK fashion writer worth following, has gone ahead and done the cold, hard calculations. Yes, as you’ve always suspected, there is a specific formula to the monetary value of celebrity baby photos.
Now, nobody here is asserting on the record that breeding is more lucrative than releasing a new album. On the record.
But…
Once A-list children made their debut at the Crillon ball in Paris; now they’re on the cover of a Richard Desmond publication – OK!, generally, not Asian Babes…
Some might think these prices are the product of a celebrity-obsessed media that believes its own self-produced hype. In fact, they are the result of a strict mathematical formula: Value of pictures = Fame of parents x glamorousness of mother during pregnancy x general attractiveness of both parents (no one wants to fork out a couple of mil for an ugly baby) + any past scandal that either parent has overcome to reach this ending + funniness of child’s name. Divide amount by two-thirds if child is adopted: the interest in celebrity kids is to see how the celebrity’s genes have fared, you see.
As if there isn’t already an obscure branch of calculus devoted to the economics of celebrity adoption. I believe that Cambridge will shortly boast the Madonna Chair in African PhotoOps.
July 20th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Cash is kind of scaring me up there.
July 20th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I dunnno; in the Celebrity Baby Stakes he’s kind of refreshingly normal. And I pity him, because being Mister Jessica Alba can’t be a cavalcade of fun and thrills.