Britney Spears has done a lot of really weird things over the last few years. Shaving her head, carrying her infant son in the front seat of the car she’s driving – a lot of the derision she has suffered from over the years is earned. But consider for a moment if you were being followed day and night by paparazzi – people who are being paid to get as many pictures taken of you as possible. Consider if the people snapping your photograph were getting paid more for pictures that portrayed you as unflattering or embarrassing as possible?

This is the life that many celebrities are increasingly finding themselves in. It used to be that weekly gossip newspapers like The National Enquirer were the worst thing for a celebrity trying to protect their image. Not anymore – with the rise of cable networks with hundreds of channels, shows like Inside Edition and Entertainment Tonight have even more competition in the fight for the eyes of America’s television viewers. In fact, this media availability has created shows like TMZ, who are extremely aggressive in pointing out blunders that celebrities make, emphasizing their errors, and even going so far as to actively engage them in an attempt to get them to do or say something noteworthy.

If a celebrity gets frustrated and yells at his or her pursuers over this invasion of every bit of privacy that they may have, it’s considered a success by the paparazzi. If the celebrity gets physical, even better. With all of this going on, it’s amazing that celebrities even try to go out in public at all. Most normal people wouldn’t be able to deal with the hounding. That’s probably why so many start acting out – at the heart of it, they’re normal too.