Why Can't Michael Lohan and Jon Gosselin Shut Up?

The two not-celebrities keep flapping their gums, and there's a clinical reason why

Why can't Michael Lohan or Jon Gosselin shut up? Is it a disease?
—L, via the Answer B!tch inbox

I wish it were, just so I could claim credit for the discovery and make up an awesome name for it, like egobelioma or delusia bifida.

But no. In fact, the reason why Michael Lohan won't stop talking about his daughter—or leaking supposedly private calls about her—and the reason why Jon Gosselin still thinks anyone cares about what he has to say, is a lot more chilling than a mere head disorder...

Because according to psychiatrists, it could affect any of us, if the circumstances were specific enough. Because it's in the air.

"This is actually more of a cultural effect," Clinical psychiatrist Dr. Paul Dobransky tells me.

Culturally, it used to be considered the norm to earn a living with one's hands—growing corn or making cartons, you see. Or you chose a profession, like the mighty law or Sweet Lady Science.

But increasingly, especially for people who don't choose any of that, there's only one option left, an option that has gotten new life and respect thanks to the Intertubes and the YouTubes and the many other tubes.

"All that is left is branding your sparkling personality," Dobransky explains. "In the end, you get everyone having a feeling that if they don't brand themselves and sell their life and their personality, they are at risk" of failure, the good doctor says.

And it's not like these folks have anything else to offer. Unless you count creating a barfly actor like Lindsay Lohan, or a gaggle of eight little gravy trains, as a skilled craft. And I don't.

All these guys can do is feed the media machine and hope to get paid for interviews, a tell-all book or, in the specific case of these two guys, a reality show called  The Divorced Dads Club.

Of course we can't blame only society for Jon or Michael, or we'd have a planet of Jons or Michaels. These two also have specific personalities that, when combined with said cultural phenomena, create monsters. Specifically, Dobransky divides most people into four personality types: magicians, warriors, lovers and kings or queens. Michael is likely a magician, Dobransky says.

"The magician personalities feel fulfilled when they get a chance to entertain others, engage them, make them laugh or get a reaction out of them," Dobransky explains.

Of course if you can engage millions of people on a daily basis, you're one completely ecstatic magician. (Gosselin probably fits into the category of the lover, more of a soft, creative ne'er do well. Again, perfect for the world of reality TV and reality TV news.)

And if not, you've got a serious case of egobelioma.

(Originally published Nov. 12, 2009, at 2:19 p.m. PT)