Celebrity Status Essay

Submitted By supergirl155
Words: 1126
Pages: 5

The Celebrity Status Turning on the T.V, logging into any social media based site, or simply opening a newspaper, the lives of celebrities are plastered across the world. It has come to my attention that the society we live in today is obsessed with the lives of people we identify as idols. Following their every move, stalking them in order to know what they had for breakfast, today’s fan will spend hours on end researching their favorite celebrity just to know every little detail about him or her. Even though we look up to these certain famous people, we hardly know anything about them. When people identify a celebrity, they regularly name a person that is known worldwide. Simply put, a celebrity is defined as one who is widely known and of great popular interest (“Celebrity”). The vagueness of the definition makes it seem as though most people can be acclaimed as a celebrity, which should not be true due to the fact that almost anyone, even a popular girl in high school, can be referred to as a celebrity. The valid definition of a celebrity should describe a person who possesses the aspects a traditional celebrity would have had years ago including a strong sense of morals and a talent that not many possess. To fully understand the new definition, one must know what defines a traditional celebrity. In the times of actor Audrey Hepburn, baseball player Babe Ruth, and singer Frank Sinatra, one could only become known for his or her exceptional talents. Their extraordinary skills in acting, singing, or driving in a home run made them esteemed by many. People back then were driven to perfecting their trade, rather than marketing themselves in order to be acknowledged. Take, for example, baseball player Ted Williams. He sought to be known as a great hitter, so he trained long hours on the field, rather than spending those hours on interviews or photographs (Epstein). Not only these people had a unique talent, but also held a strong sense of morals. The celebrities became great role models due to their beliefs that they held throughout their career. Audrey Hepburn never let the fame get to her head, all she acquired to do was focus on her acting career and let nothing deter her from that. She kept her class, under no circumstances stooping down to the levels of selling her body in order to get a foot up on the social ladder. Traditional celebrities can simply be described as a people who influenced the minds of many, even today, through their distinctive ability and strong ethics. Even though there is a tradition to celebrities, the face of the celebrity culture, as we know it, is changing. No longer is becoming a celebrity about improving one’s gift. Celebrity now depends upon being in the social media’s eye at whatever costs necessary. People feel as though they need to be acknowledged constantly, so they do outrageous things in order to remain relevant. For example, some celebrities are recognized for their shocking lifestyles, or the infamous acts they commit. Lindsay Lohan was once identified for her childhood acting career and her sweetheart face. Now, she is known as the girl who recently went to rehab, just to promote her new movie “I Know Who Killed Me” (Monk). With all the press surrounding her at the time, the turn out for the movie was more than expected, mostly made up of people attending due to the social media hype around the actress. Young stars similar to her, such as Miley Cyrus, and Amanda Bynes, were associated with the acting world, but are now associated with outrageous acts. It is true that certain celebrities still have a special talent that most do not share, but they develop their talent at the cost of selling their image. To be spotlighted in order to be seen by the public, the “celebrity” “must embody the ideal consumers and at the same time, become commodities to survive in the modern society. Celebrities are nothing more- or less- than products themselves” (Derakhshani). By way of