In my view, you're gripe is that this system would be super shallow. Kind of agreed! What could give it more depth & substance, what could better direct this available energy? Sure, "don't" is a valid answer! But also, what might we try?
Thereby turning every issue into a cause célèbre.
I'm proposing here a thought experiment where, rather than letting the public arena and media suss out how to play the story, the public gets a direct vote.
My actual hope was the opposite of what you say: rather than leaving the media cycle around celebrities rumble on indefinitely, there'd be some discrete feedback events, checkin points where we can decide whether this de-facto cause celebre is - to borrow from a magazine - wired tired or expired.
So by pop vote people vote their favorite causes (schools, roads, homeless shelters, prisons, climate, pensions, etc.) and as a taxpayer you can vote your dollars/currency into any number of causes you can spread your tax contribution among.
/s (in case you're missing it, politicians are already effectively celebrities)