Celebrity culture: Real and fake celebrities - 6th
September 2012
Celebrity culture is
well and truly a living, breathing, existing machine. We are absolutely buried
with personal information of those we adore, idolise and imitate. However technology
and social media have distorted the lines between what makes someone a ‘real
celebrity’. Gone are the days where those who only became recognised globally
were those rare, special individuals with real achievements, real charisma and
real talent. I would learn lessons, be influenced, follow the trends of my
favourite celebrities. Soccer icon Diego Maradona showed us how destructive the
effects of drugs can be and how easily they can derail even one with ‘the hand
of god’. Maradona ‘provoked concerns
about drug abuse and prevention in Argentina, particularly among young people’
(Brown, 2010). This showed just how influential celebrity culture could be.
Nowadays you could be one of the best running backs in the
National Football League and have earned a legion of supporters and rightfully
so. People will see you walking down the street and exclaim ‘There’s so and so!
He just scored three touchdowns last week!’ You have achieved something people
have recognised you for it.
Yet there is still
ten times more people paying attention to your ex-girlfriend who is only known
for having a large posterior and a sex tape.
For lack of a better KPI, let’s determine the more
influential individual with each participant’s amount of ‘followers’ on international
social site Twitter.
The aforementioned athlete, Reggie Bush, chimes in with a
decent two and a half million followers. The latter, Kim Kardashian breaks the
bank with a whopping 16 million followers. This is a great example of self-promotion
prevailing over real talent. ‘Significance of the ordinary’ is at an all-time
high as ‘fame is (now) differently produced’ (Gamson, 2011).
Reference list:
Brown, W 2010, Sport Celebrities and Public Health, Journal of Health Communication, vol. 15,
issue 4, p358-373, viewed 05/09/2012
Gamson, J 2011, The Unwatched Life Is Not Worth Living, Publications of the Modern Language
Association of America, vol. 126, issue 4, p1061-1069, viewed 05/09/2012
