Lindsay Lohan makes the news again; surprise, surprise, it’s in a negative way.

This time, it’s for crying in court when a California judge sentenced her to 90 days in jail. I would feel badly for her if her prior offenses had gotten her a slightly stiffer penalty.

The life of a celebrity is one of perks and perils; sometimes they get off easy, other times the jaws of the public sink deeply into them.

Initially Lohan had received a get out of jail free card. After being convicted of two drunk driving charges and a reckless driving charge, she spent a grand total of 84 minutes in jail, according to the BBC.

If you know anyone who has appeared in the police blotter, there’s a good chance you know someone who has spent more time in a jail than 84 minutes. They may have spent more time in transit and being processed.

If I were really famous, would things really be that easy for me? Even going to jail for some serious things isn’t that bad. There’s a chance my stay would be shorter than some movies.

Then again, the other side of the coin for celebrities is their private matters are public, and they get hammered for them. Tiger Woods had his personal life under a magnifying glass when distasteful things were afoot.

Would I wonder why people cared so much about my personal life? Would my thoughts be taken seriously, or would I be just another celebrity?

Granted I’d probably be pretty wealthy, but I’m not sure if that wealth makes other celebrities have happy lives. I’d definitely have a bunch of cool stuff like expensive toys and clothes.

I’m not sure an easier life necessarily means my pursuit of happiness would be a successful one. The pedestal the public could put me on might be too high to climb down from.

In our search for something to occupy our time as a society, we turn to many things. The emphasis of our cultural thought often falls toward sports, celebrities, pornography and material things.

Celebrities are nothing new to humanity, but the intensity of our attachment is stronger than ever. In our need to live out a life of meaning, we vicariously live through others. We study them in tabloids and on the Internet, there simply isn’t enough access to them to satisfy the public’s hunger.

Lohan’s 84-minute jail stint for serious offenses reflects an inability to separate our thoughts of her being a celebrity from her as a person.

Tiger Woods’ personal life is being invaded meticulously because we are watching celebrities all the time. The public takes a sick joy in seeing people floundering in their fall from grace — as if that finally makes celebrities human.

Celebrities will start being treated normally when people stop projecting them into their roles as entertainers when they aren’t doing their jobs.

That’s not really fair to them or to us. Placing them above ourselves is a weird way of saying we don’t have enough going on in our own lives to be interesting to ourselves.