Has the culture of the celeb begun to decline? The Oxford English Corpus shows that use of celebrity has risen steadily since 2000， but that of the abbreviation celeb has dropped since 2006， suggesting that the public may be starting to tire of these trashy， wannabe， Z-list individuals （all words regularly found attached to celeb in the Corpus）. Though it seems very much a product of the 21st century， with its glut of reality TV and promises of instant fame， the abbreviation of celebrity was first seen almost a hundred years ago. Since then celeb has taken on strong associations of a very particular type of fame and its attendant lifestyle， with celebs often famous simply for being famous， rather than for any particular skill or talent.