Journal Address: Celebrities are normal people

Journal+Address%3A+Celebrities+are+normal+people

Editorial Board

Over 28.2 million people could tell you who Kanye West is. That is about 12,261 times the 2,300 students we have at SHS, and that’s just his Twitter followers. Sure his name has surfaced quite a bit recently due to endorsing certain political figures, but he, along with many other celebrities are getting idolized for all of the wrong reasons.

They’re normal people. They side with political figures, they make mistakes and they definitely aren’t perfect, just like any one of us.

When you idolize a celebrity, you are stereotyping them. Kanye endorsing Trump isn’t what upsets people, it’s their judgement and made up perception of who he is that does.

We idolize celebrities because we want someone to look up to. It’s like wanting an example to go off of for a final project in a class.

But why? What makes these people model citizens? It sure can’t be rape accusations (Kobe Bryant), violence towards women (Chris Brown) or drag racing under the influence in Miami Beach (Justin Bieber). In reality, these people are just like any other John and Jane Doe from your hometown. These are wrongdoings that occur everywhere.

Celebrities should not be major role models in people’s lives. The people who we are surrounded by on a daily basis should be. Parents, teachers and peers.

A psychologist at the University of Buffalo conducted an experiment to show the effect of idolizing celebrities. She gathered 348 college students and had them complete a questionnaire to determine their level of self esteem. She then had them write about their favorite celebrity with an identical questionnaire to follow. From this, she found that the students who reported low self perceptions the first time had a higher self esteem after writing about their idol.

“(The psychologist) pointed out that a little admiration for a celebrity can be good for a person because it reinforces a feeling of community and belongingness — two crucial components of healthy childhood development. But too much can be harmful, she said. Stalking, extreme imitation, and isolating oneself from friends and family all have negative effects,” a report stated on Medical Daily.

Putting celebrities in the spotlight objectifies them and degrades them from what they’re really worth. It’s gotten to the point where people will spend hundreds of dollars to gain VIP access for a simple signature or photo with whoever the celebrity may be, when really they are just humans, like me and you.

When holding celebrities to such high standards, it holds individuals back from their own self worth as well because they rely on others. Young adults often fail to make their own political stances because they choose to side with their favorite pop star rather than think for themselves.

With how fast technology is advancing, this problem is only getting worse. The convenience of the technology allows people to gain self esteem and insight instead of being independent thinking individuals.

Instead, we should be looking up to those around us. The family member who never misses a holiday, the teacher who always asks how your day’s going or the classmate in your first period class who has a 4.0.