In his book Life: The Movie, cultural critic Neil Gabler claims that People magazine has became the archetypical magazine of our times. Gabler writes:

Inspired by a section of Time magazine that chronicled celebrity milestones … People expanded the concept to include anything a celebrity did, on the canny principle that ordinary people were fascinated by extraordinary ones. Within ten months of its launch on March 4, 1974, the magazine had a circulation of 1.25 million.

Although People made a point of including noncelebrities in its pages … its success was unmistakably a testament to the enchantment of celebrity. People editor Richard Stolley even devised a set of rules for a successful cover: Young is better than old. Pretty is better than ugly. Rich is better than poor. TV is better than music. Music is better than movies. Movies are better than sports. Anything is better than politics. And nothing is better than a celebrity who has just died. It was a bracing description of not only what sold magazines but of what values the media now sold to the country.