A new word "Peoplerazzi" has been coined to describe citizen journalists who focus on celebrities, in catching well-known people doing ordinary things.

Which brings us to "peoplerazzi" — the coming wave of regular people who one day will realize that in their hands they hold something far more powerful than a cellular telephone (and in many countries beyond the U.S., the wave is rolling). Camera phones in the grip of the average person (billions of them) will leave no part of the earth undiscovered — and inevitably that will mean criminals caught in the act, celebrities snapped being all kinds of mundane [could the big-dollar days of paparazzi be over?] and, with luck, entirely new forms of entertainment and enlightenment for all of us to watch and experience.

Professional athletes are lavishly pampered and provocatively paid in our culture. They are pestered by the peoplerazzi — intrusive autograph hounds and hero worshipers who never let up. And in many cases, they become self-absorbed, irreverent and indifferent.