Socialite

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Polo crowd in St. Moritz

A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained. Socialites are usually wealthy. Socialites in the past used their social skills and connections to promote and raise funds for various charitable or philanthropic activities. Contemporary socialites may include persons considered by the media to have a certain notoriety such as Paris Hilton and Casey Johnson. American socialites were originally listed in the Social Register.

By the mid-twentieth century, television news gave little attention to members of high society and in the 1970s newspapers curtailed or discontinued their daily "Society" page to institute a Sunday "Style" section.

In Europe, some members of the noble families (or bourgeois) are socialites and possibly the most representative form which is imitated in the United States.

In recent years socialites have been largely neglected in the media and social prominence has come to reside with celebrities, who are more famous, have a public profile and are often accomplished at a specific profession. Socialites and celebrities were briefly united in the Jet Set around 1960 but in later years the former group were seemingly absorbed and subsumed by the latter, although the facts do not necessarily bear this out, as the two groups are often interchangeable. The recent book The Socialite Manifesto by Christiana Spens satirizes both social groups in a playful manner.

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