Ryan Phillippe is thinking of leaving L.A. He's tired of having the paparazzi following him and his family everywhere he goes. Mary-Louise Parker thinks the paparazzi culture is sick. And Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have opted to travel permanently rather than give the paparazzi a chance to wait outside their eco-friendly gates. But with the popularity of digital cameras and stalking celebrities, there's no escaping fame and having said fame photographed. And whiners complaining to major news outlets are complicit in a culture that has them photographed picking up trash.

The paparazzi aren't a monolithic hoard of photographers only based in southern California. All it takes is a digital camera and a disregard for human privacy to become a "celebrity photo journalist." An unflattering and unwanted photo can happen anywhere.

Last month, John Mayer took a break from his multiple residences in major American cities to take a vacation in the Caribbean. You know, just chill with his fellow quarter-life crisis friends and do poor imitations of Sasha Baron Cohen in a Borat bathing suit. But Erin Horgan, a fan with nothing to do but stalk John Mayer, flew out to the Caribbean to spy on her idol, snapped pictures of him in a thong and sold them to Newsweek and VH1.

Heath Ledger moved out to Brooklyn hoping to escape photographers, but his life in the outer borough was well-documented. The very presence of his and Michelle Williams's celebrity validated Brooklynites. In New York, we pretend not to care about seeing celebrities, but of course we do, very much. In a small town in Colorado, or wherever Phillippe is thinking of running away to, there's no pretense. People will really care that he's living there, especially considering he's discussed his possible flight with W magazine. And they really will take pictures of him and sell them off to photo agencies and news outlets.

It's just the price of fame. Or the price of fame with a good body.