How Pop Culture Impacts Celebrity Worship

Introduction
Whether it is film, fashion or even music, pop culture not only has mass appeal, but also general acceptability. For ages, music has been a key aspect of pop culture. Today, music is a crucial component of our everyday life and towards this end, it comes in formats and forms that are as diverse as its audience. Thanks to the special bond or connection that people have with music, they tend to develop a cult-like affinity to the composers of such music. Thus, the listening audience becomes drawn to celebrity musicians – and soon enough, the said celebrities are elevated to a deity status. The listening audience starts pegging all its hopes, aspirations, and dreams on these mortal composers of popular music; with the obvious result being celebrity worship. In addition to occasioning significant damage to the moral fabric, celebrity worship also infects the collective conscience of the society and leads to significant character weaknesses, amongst other things.
Discussion
It is important to note, from the onset, that for a large part, celebrities are largely characters that are not only packaged, but also primed and conditioned for dissemination via the relevant media so as to provide (and sustain) entertainment for a specific target audience (Levy 214). This is to say that in most cases, celebrities are far from the freely expressing and authentic beings that we deem them to be. As a consequence, it is the audience that becomes conditioned to specific ways of thinking via the interaction they have with their select celebrities via various mass media. It should be noted that for a celebrity, the relevance of maintaining a certain image for public consumption cannot be overstated. This is more so the case given that, as Levy points out, the public judges celebrities on the basis of what they appears to be – the image they projects (218). In this case, the image projected is rarely genuine. As a matter of fact, in entertainment, celebrities have over time refined the art of personality refinement – in which case they can successfully manufacture and sustain a character that is the exact opposite of their actual personas. The audience is in this case presented with a fake persona of their idol on which it anchors its fantasies. The result is what could be referred to as the worship of synthetic personas. According to Sheridan, North, Maltby, and Gillett, “imitating these celebrities can have negative consequences for the worshipper” (559).
In the music industry, celebrity worship is wide spread. This is because unlike any other industry, the music industry tends to have a huge fanatical following. To begin with, most celebrities in the music industry have been branded bad role models, especially for young people who look up to them for guidance. Some of those who have been unfortunate enough to attract the tag of bad role models include, but they are not limited to, Nicki Minaj, 50 Cent, and Eminem. In the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, there was a rather ugly confrontation between Nicki Minaj and Miley Cyrus, the host of the show. The public spar featured very aggressive behavior and an assortment of insults. Millions of young people across America, most of whom are die-hard fans of either celebrities, were glued to their screens the whole time. What lessons did they learn from this confrontation?
The provocative dress code of some music industry celebrities is also in most cases promptly copied by hard-core fans. Some pop music celebrities like Nicki Minaj are also quite outspoken about their sexuality. According to Jackson and Vares, “female celebrities’ hypersexual performances and styling, in particular, have been significantly implicated in claims about girls being launched into premature sexuality under the influence of their idols” (144). With most fans hanging on to their every word, it is not hard to see why bad behaviors could be passed on from the said celebrities to fans who deeply revere them. The motivating factor in this case could be; if my idol is doing it, then why should I not follow in their footsteps? If this were to be extended to drug use and abuse, celebrity worship becomes a real concern as far as the distortion of appropriate standards of behavior is concerned.
Secondly, celebrity worship also leads to a loss of a sense of identity (Sheridan, North, Maltby, and Gillett 569). When a die-hard fan becomes obsessed with a celebrity of his choice, he or she could seek to adopt the character and personality of the said celebrity with regard to lifestyle, likes and dislikes, hobbies, and even subtle individual characteristics such as walking style and way of talking. In the words of Sheridan, North, Maltby, and Gillett, “pathological celebrity worshippers are seeking a personal identity and are drawn to particular celebrity” (569). Towards this end, it would be prudent to take into consideration one of the most popular musicians of our times, i.e. Justin Bieber. At age 25, Justin has a huge fanatical following. In a rather clear indication of celebrity worship, this fan base refers to itself as ‘Beliebers’. They are believers in the ‘teachings’ of Justin Bieber. Towards this end, most fans dress like Justin and to a large extent follow all his moves on social media. Thus, these fans seek to negotiate the world around them as ‘Justin Bieber’ and embrace the mentality of ‘what would Justin Bieber do’ when confronted by the various realities of life. For instance, some who would have made good actors now want to become musicians and live as Justin does. This is a classic example of loss of a sense of identity.
Third, it would also be prudent to pursue the religious implications of celebrity worship. Today’s society has largely erred by elevating celebrities to the position of a deity. This flies in the face of the biblical teachings that we must not worship other Gods apart from God the creator of heaven and earth. Today, people would rather go to musical concert or to a club to listen to music than attend church service. In essence, anything that prevents a person from fulfilling his religious obligations effectively replaces God. We are, therefore, becoming a less religious society that places too much hope on mere mortals, at the expense of trusting in God. In the end, this ends up straining the society’s moral standing even further.
Despite the fact that celebrity worship, with special reference to those in the music industry, has significant downsides, there are some positive attributes of the same that ought to be explored. Although there are celebrities out there who are deemed to be negative influencers, there are also celebrities whose behaviors are desirable and whose morel standing is upright. These influence their fans positively. There is no shortage of examples in this case. Those in the music industry whose influence has been positive amongst followers include Chris Tomlin, David Crowder Band, Jeremy Camp, and Mathew West. Most of these are Christian gospel music artists. Die-hard fans of this category of musicians thus benefit via the further enhancement of their character and are inspired towards embracing the things that really matter in life. Next, it should also be noted that in today’s fast-paced society, depression and stress have become rather common. For this reason, there is need to have a medium that helps us all ease and cope with the various pressures of life. Music comes in handy on this front. By associating with the ‘synthetic’ images of musicians and the often sham messages they spew in their lyrics, we embrace an alternative reality that numbs us from real life challenges, albeit temporarily.
There are various factors that promote celebrity worship. One of the more prominent ones is that celebrities provide fans with an alternative reality – a way to escape the challenges of daily living and embrace the imagined life. This is more so the case given that in most instances, their standards of living and approach to issues differ from our own. Because they do what we can ordinarily not be able to do, we tend to envy them. However, as it has already been pointed out elsewhere in this text, the image projected by celebrities is often not only packaged, but also primed and conditioned to appeal to a specific target audience. Herein lays the solution to mitigating the negative consequences of celebrity worship. Towards this end, the mass media should be made to serve as a sieve so as to ensure that the general public, specifically young adults, is not fed toxic information emanating from celebrities. Such a course of action could be inclusive of not only censoring any celebrity content deemed obscene and misleading, but also refusing airplay for music whose content is likely to be injurious to the moral fabric.
Conclusion
In the final analysis, it is clear from the text above that celebrity worship happens to be detrimental to the society. Although die-hard fans could indeed pick some positive behaviors from their pop music idols, most times celebrities tend to have negative influence on their vulnerable fans. It is important to note that to succeed, the solution highlighted herein would call for the active involvement of various stakeholders including the relevant government agencies, the media, talent managers, etc. We all have a role to play. Rational fans could, for instance, add their voice to the demand for accountability amongst celebrities. We all ought to join hands in seeking to ensure that we leave the world a better place than we found it.






Works Cited
Jackson, Sue, and Vares, Tar. “Too Many Bad Role Models for Us Girls: Girls, Female Pop Celebrities and 'Sexualisation'.” Sexualities, vol. 18 no. 4, 2015, 143-154.
Levy, Michael. Celebrity and Entertainment Obsession: Understanding Our Addiction. New York, Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Sheridan, Lorraine, North, Adrian, Maltby John, and Gillett Raphael. Celebrity Worship, Addiction and Criminality. Psychology, Crime, and Law, vol. 13 no. 6, 2007, 559-571.