Celebrities are the base for North American fashion and culture. People such as Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Jessica Simpson usually set the base for what teenagers wear. Young girls often look at pictures of celebrities, and try to imitate their clothing and hair styles.
Parents of teenagers usually aren't very pleased with their daughters having these celebrities as their role models. The reason for this feeling is because celebrities like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera are often dressed very promiscuously, and they don't want that style to be reflected on their child.
Celebrity relationships are also very popular in the media. The perfect example of this is the break-up between Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. It was a major scandal that shortly after the split, Brad Pitt started dating Angelina Jolie, and Jennifer Aniston started dating Vince Vaughn. For some reason, most people enjoy seeing into the personal lives of famous people, and gossip about them on a daily basis. Celebrities often exploit this fact by starring in reality shows based around their every day lives, as we saw in the case of Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson.
This strange fascination with famous people puts money in the pockets of tabloid and magazine publishers, along with the producers of Entertainment shows such as Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood, which are essentially 30-minute celebrity gossip shows.