Join us for a special event on August 17th at 6:15pm featuring Landon Jones, author of Celebrity Nation: How America Evolved into a Culture of Fans and Followers.

From the writer and editor who coined the term “baby boomer," Celebrity Nation explores how and why fame no longer stems only from heroic achievements but from the number of “likes” and shares—and what this change means for American culture. Jones—who spent decades in “celebrityland” only to emerge, like Alice, blinking in the sunlight—brings a personal and first-person perspective on fame and its dark underbelly, complicated even further by the arrival of the internet and social media. Jones draws on his experience as the former managing editor of People magazine to bolster his account with profiles of celebrities he knew personally, ranging from Malcolm X to Princess Diana, as well as observations about contemporary social media stars like Kim Kardashian and computer-generated macro-influencer Miquela, a self-proclaimed “19-year-old Robot living in LA.” In analyzing the stories of over 75 celebrities, spanning decades and industries, Jones shows how celebrity has been wielded as a weapon of mass distraction to spawn narcissism, harm, and loneliness.

Landon Y. Jones is an American editor and author. He is a former managing editor of People magazine.