Celebrities in the 1970s became willing to disclose private details they had once guarded

Evidence

Richard Stolley could not fail to notice: “We found out that people in the news were quite willing to talk to us about themselves. They’d talk about lots of personal things—their sex lives, their families, their religion. They’d talk about things that a few years earlier wouldn’t even be brought up.” Perhaps it was the glossy paper or the fact that Time-Life, not the National Enquirer, was the publisher. Whatever the case, People found that celebrities were now increasingly willing to discuss the very sorts of things about themselves and their families that all people, the famous most of all, had once jealously guarded. All you really had to do was ask. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 777

Categorization

• SHARE: A detail for anyone into media history: People magazine’s success rested on the discovery that celebrities would now talk about sex lives and religion if simply asked.
• ADDENDUM: Connects to the ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ piece as a modern chapter: the confessional norm as a category shift in what is considered private.