The Impact Of Celebrity Culture On Society

Celebrities all around the world have millions of followers on different forms of social media, which enables them to influence people to make good or bad choices. Celebrity culture has a negative impact on Western society by being bad role-models for their followers. There are three main ways that celebrities are bad role-models, these points are endorsing unrealistic body standards, drug use and bad behaviour.

One negative impact of celebrities being bad role-models is setting unrealistic body standards. Some female celebrities post pregnancy is a bad influence on new mothers in a way that they are seeing photos and post of these celebrities’ post pregnancy saying how they are back to their pre-pregnancy weight. This in turn causes these new mothers to believe that they can achieve a body just like their favourite celebrity post pregnancy. This suggests a gap between portrayal of celebrities’ pregnancies and postpartum experiences and those of non-celebrity women. Within this unrealistic body standards which may lead to mental health problems such has depression and anxiety. This difference can lead to an extremely unrealistic expectation about body image post pregnancy for both pregnant readers and a more general audience.” Studies have relatively few articles about celebrities’ pregnancies discussed weight (13%) or shape (30%), and an even smaller proportion (6.2%) included any discussion of postpartum body dissatisfaction” (Lydecker, Lamanna & Mazzeo, 2012). Unrealistic body image is not the only issue surrounding celebrities being bad role-models another issue is drug use.

Drug use is already a huge problem in today’s society let alone with the influence that celebrities have over ordinary people. The celebrities that have been caught doing drugs are a negative influence over today’s society, which is compounded by the way they are portrayed in the media making them look cool when they are caught. When such behaviour is seen in society it is usually idolised by the younger generation who in turn increase the celebrities fame. Since this generation is at the stage in their life where they are experimenting, they inevitably start practicing what they have watched the celebrities do and they themselves end up becoming drug addicts (Bleckwenn, Skatulla & Weckbecker, 2016). “A study that was conducted showed that 220 celebrities who died a drug-related death with a clear indication of involved substances between 1970 and 2015. The average age at death was 38.6 years; 75% were male. Most celebrities died between the age of 25 and 40. The number of drug-related deaths increased in the 21st century, with a significant increase in the use of prescription opioids. Deaths involving prescription opioids and heroin were associated with a significantly lower mean age at death compared to deaths where these substances were not involved”.

To become a famous celebrity, it seems you no longer need to have any talent or quality. There are Instagram, Facebook and YouTube celebrities. The power celebrity status generates are however extremely variable. Come celebrities seem to appear to get away with all manner of wrongdoing whilst other celebrities suffer the infamy and disgrace when caught out. There are sometimes when their celebrity status appears to allow them to break the moral, social and legal codes. Some celebrities also often act as a disciplinary measuring out the punishment. A such when the younger generation see the celebrities acting out in this manner and seemingly getting away with whatever they did wrong they believe that they are above the law as well. Celebrities due to their status and being in the public eye so often they need to conduct themselves with a certain standard of behaviour. There is no doubt there is truth in the fact that being a celebrity can be a great help in celebrity redemption. A couple of examples are the supermodels Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell who continued on with their successful careers after their widely publicised arrests. (drug abuse in Moss's case and a conviction for assault in Campbell's case).

Celebrity culture has a negative impact on western society by being bad role-models. The negative impact from celebrities far outweighs any positive impact that they might have on society. The reason behind this is due to the fact that the positive impacts are extremely easy to accomplish but any negative impact is even harder to correct. Celebrities need to realise that the younger generation are easily led down the wrong path and are vulnerable to their influences. The power of the celebrity culture is growing day by day. We as a society can only expect that those celebrities will stop for a minute and start thinking about the people they are influencing and stop worrying about their own fame and fortune.

References

• Gow, R. W., Lydecker, J. A., Lamanna, J. D., & Mazzeo, S. E. (2012). Representations of celebrities’ weight and shape during pregnancy and postpartum: A content analysis of three entertainment magazine websites. Body image, 9(1), 172-175. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1740144511000957
• Just, J. M., Bleckwenn, M., Schnakenberg, R., Skatulla, P., & Weckbecker, K. (2016). Drug-related celebrity deaths: A cross-sectional study. Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy, 11(1), 40. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5148833/
• Berkers, P., & Eeckelaer, M. (2014). Rock and roll or rock and fall? Gendered framing of the rock and roll lifestyles of Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty in British broadsheets. Journal of gender studies, 23(1), 3-17. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2010.535319?casa_token=T71SSqdmz6UAAAAA%3A8mj-Rif_wlXe6GZ5ZyyXWIM1Q9qyTJRLQHKnTUx1Mdg0VhmlwZ63QxejrVUiGNo4uMhOctADSQqRLG4