People irrationally believe proximity to a celebrity magically protects them from disaster.

Evidence

If this sounds superstitious, it is; but research has shown that in fact, people believe that a plane is less likely to crash if a famous person is among the passengers, because proximity to a famous person confers upon you some magical sense of your own immortality. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 424

Categorization

• CANDY: Fun, tweetable: people genuinely think a plane won’t crash if a celebrity is aboard.
• SEED: Angle: why airlines could market their flights by celebrity passenger as a psychological safety shield.
• XREF: connects to: Proximity to a celebrity can confer fame onto otherwise unknown people. — Alice E. Marwick, Instafame: Luxury Selfies in the…, 53