WTF Is with the Tabloid Obsession with Celebrities 'Stepping Out'?

It’s a fucking epidemic. All day, every day, all of the celebrities on earth are engaged in one single-minded purpose, and neither inclement weather nor lurking paparazzi nor sudden sinkholes nor plagues of toads nor yoga being cancelled shall keep them from their dark obsession. The obsession known as…STEPPING OUT.

Seriously, ‘bloidz, WHAT IS STEPPING OUT AND WHY WON’T IT LEAVE ME ALONE? It comes up so often in gossip headlines it’s like a tic at this point. “Duchess Kate steps out for the first time since baby’s birth.” “Newly single Eva Longoria proves stripes can be flattering as she steps out in black and white maxi dress.” “Bradley Cooper Steps Out with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Mom!” “Kristen Stewart Exposes Bra, Steps Out With Rumored New Dog.” And so on and so on for-literally-ever.

Stepping out of where? A quicksand pit? A jacuzzi? A magic wardrobe? A whale’s colon? The shadows? Could you please be more specific?

I mean, I get it. I kid. “Stepping out” is just a fancy euphemism for “went outside,” because tabloids are for-profit gossip machines and to stay relevant you have to feed the internet-beast all-day-all-night, and “Mila Kunis Went Outside” doesn’t make for a particularly click-worthy or elegant headline. So it’s a way of taking literally nothing—merely the act of a celebrity existing—and turning it into “gossip.”

But could we maybe come up with something new? SOMETHING else? Because I’ve read the phrase “stepping out”/”steps out”/”stepped out” so many times over the past couple of months that the words have lost all meaning and also I forgot how to walk.

Ideas for a new nonsense phrase we could use to pretend that it’s news when celebrities go outside:

perambulated
doodled
clip-clopped
fancy-pranced
did leg stuff
got their SHOE THANG ON
farted around
blasted off
rode the butt-trumpet to walky-town
foot-fucked the pavement
homo-erected
got an offer from the sidewalk that they couldn’t refuse
just lived their goddamn life like a normal person uuuuuuuuugggghghghhghgh