We are all in thrall to celebrity.
Whether by voraciously consuming page after page of glossy gossip magazines, desperately refreshing our Instagram feeds in the vain hope that we will be one of those lucky few to comment "first" on a selfie of Kendall Jenner, or by stalking the streets of Beverly Hills, iPhone at the ready, anticipating that most coveted of celebrity-obsessed memorabilia; the selfie.
The fact is, celebrities are the idols of the young and the envy of the rest; documenting their chintz-filled existence with photo after filtered photo, hashtag after provocative caption, and we lap it up. Perhaps this is because we have a space in our own lives that, try as we might, we can't seem to fill. And so, like a tourist at a dessert buffet, we cram ourselves full of frothy cream cakes, (in this analogy, perhaps the Kardashians), knowing full well that such sickly, chemical injected fodder will never truly sate our gluttony.
Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with this, save perhaps the arresting notion that our celebrity-obsessed culture is distracting us from our own emptiness and the moral bankruptcy of our very society. It is, after all, a passably pleasant way to spend half an hour at the end of the day; scrolling through Instagram with that deadened, slightly hunted look in your eyes as you gaze, desensitized at a picture of Emily Ratajkowski seducing the very soul out of your body with one of those doe-eyed stares.
It is fun to keep up with the lives of the rich and famous, though, and so in the spirit of such things, I'm here to tell you that Zac Efron - he of Baywatch hunk and High School Musical heartthrob fame - has appeared to have got himself some pretty impressive dreadlocks.
In an image uploaded to Instagram, Efron writes "Just for fun", alongside a black and white image of his new 'do. Check it out;
Predictably, Instagram has gone into something of a meltdown at the news, with some even accusing the movie star of being "racially insensitive".
Others went for a more middle-of-the-road response with one user simply writing "Your hair looks funny", while another took a less forgiving tone, telling the movie star "It's a NO from us, sorry."
Some did like his new look though, as one user commented "Looks great!" and another dubbing the heartthrob "dream BOI".
It has also been speculated that the look could be due to Efron's role in upcoming movie The Beach Bum, starring Isla Fisher and Snoop Dogg among others, a notion that appeared to appease on particular fan, who wrote ""If it's for a film, I'm okay with it."
Oh Zac, when will you learn, nothing you ever post to Instagram will ever be "just for fun" when your ceaselessly hungry public are watching your every move, beady-eyed, in their never-ending attempts to finally feel whole again.
