During spring break, I attended two premieres and watched two red carpet events.

UCLA sees its fair share of celebrities on campus, but somehow this was the first time I’d seen anyone of note. Although LA is the capital of the entertainment industry, the appearance of a celebrity still sparks chaotic scenes reminiscent of a piranha’s feeding frenzies.

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon aren’t freshly A-list stars anymore, but with their legacies, perhaps it makes sense that everyone behind the barrier was screaming their names. That was expected. What was not quite foreseeable, for me at least, was the commodification of it all.

Many people had posters of completely unrelated movies taped to hardback canvases. That level of preparedness implied they were regulars, usuals or perhaps even professional autograph seekers. They shoved their way to the front the minute a star stepped out of their requisite black SUV.

And those same people moved down the line with the stars, forcing other people out of the way just to get another chance at having something signed.

Afterward, I heard a few talking about the autographs as if they were trading cards.

“Did you get Jason Bateman?” “No, I got a Chris Tucker.”

They were viewed as objects or items for consumption. But personally, I felt it was scummy to go to such lengths for a signature they clearly did not value as much as the effort they put in.

We all objectify celebrities daily.

In the past century, our societal obsession with celebrities has helped drive the rise of a submarket of paparazzi and tabloids. And even with the diminishing presence of print media, similar sources – although perhaps more trustworthy, ironically – like DeuxMoi have popped up.

We reduce these famous people to their looks, to the trends they create, and – very occasionally – to their work. It’s easier online, where you can be nameless, faceless and easier to ignore. And, because of the name recognition, celebrity news provides easy trends for social media companies to promote.

But it is one thing to do that online and another to do it in person.

At the red carpet for “Murder Mystery 2,” the second premiere I attended, Mélanie Laurent arrived fairly late. She went to the red carpet to talk with the rest of the cast. It did not appear that she was going to sign anything – on the side I was on, at least.

“Mélanie! I waited hours just to see you!” someone yelled from the sidelines.

At that, Laurent did come over to sign a few items. But the reason she did tainted the whole thing a little bit. It seemed manipulative at the very least, especially to an international French actress who has never reached the same levels of American fame as her costars Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston. Tellingly, Aniston didn’t cave to pressure and signed autographs only on one side.

The way we treat celebrities is markedly unacceptable.

There is an argument to be made that the point of red carpets is to incentivize a kind of obsessive behavior in the first place. After all, when almost everyone on the red carpet is rich or famous, why even leave a space on the outskirts for non-celebrities if having them there is unnecessary?

Word-of-mouth is a popular driver for success, and there’s always at least one movie each year that exemplifies this phenomenon. The 2022 multiversal drama “Everything Everywhere All At Once” was anticipated to deliver $58 million domestically, even after it had been in theaters for weeks. But its grassroots popularity ended up leading the movie to far more. Red carpet events, premieres and free advance screenings generate word-of-mouth and often help movies succeed.

Some actors depend on something similar if they want to rise to fame. Just like there is a market for celebrity gossip, there’s a mirrored market for recognition through controversy.

And celebrities are often contracted to do a certain amount of promotion, which includes talk shows and social media appearances beyond premieres and red carpets.

Somehow we expect celebrities to always be on. To always be the shining, bright stars that we see on the silver screen.

After all, that is all we see: their on-screen – and carefully calibrated off-screen – persona. But by viewing them this way, society has taken human beings and made objects out of them.