Typically, celebrities acquire accolades for having done things of note, other than attention-seeking. [1] The ones that deliberately seek attention for its own sake get as much scorn as anyone else; they're essentially tabloid heels.

And they exist for the same reason cable news is in such a state: There just isn't enough 'news' to justify 24x7 coverage, so programming must be invented that is, by definition, not things that would otherwise be considered news. [2]

[1] Without stepping into discussion of merit, our culture does ascribe value to people who play sports well, act well, are likable parts of the media, are fashionable/attractive, etc.

[2] There are cross-overs, sure. Some famous-for-being-famous types cross over into 'actual' celebrity. But that's more an effect of the secondary content operating as a 'farm league' of sorts. They throw a lot of famous-for-being-famous / 'reality-star' stuff against the wall and graduate anything that 'sticks'.

And I personally wonder at what point the 'celebrity media' will start openly paying C and D-listers directly, to generate content.

e.g. pay a couple fashion models to go to the beach and provide photo content. maybe even get some clothing labels on-board to under-write the thing for the sake of having -their- products featured and plugged in the resulting copy.

But I digress.