For example, over the past year, tourism to Marbella in Spain has dramatically risen, thanks to the 'No carbs before Marbs' catchphrase made popular by the reality show The Only Way is Essex, as well as various paparazzi shots of the cast on holidays there.
However, there is a dark side to this level of obsession. Whilst holidaying in Marbella, Joe Essex (a main character in The Only Way is Essex) had his villa ransacked and all of his belongings stolen. Essex reportedly believes he had been directly targeted because 'they knew about him being on TV and thought he'd have a lot of valuables and money'. A much more publicised story was that of 6 teenagers, dubbed 'The Bling Ring' by the media, burgling the homes of Hollywood stars such as Paris Hilton and Orlando Bloom. The extraordinary - yet rather worrying thing - is that the teens were able to use forms of media to aid the robberies, using magazines to choose which celebrity's possessions they liked, then using gossip blogs to see when they would be out of town and Google Earth to locate their home. When faced with this kind of case, has this fascination with celebrity culture bypassed simple curiosity, and taken a much more sinister turn?
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