Negative Influences of Celebrities on Teens by Alyssa Gauna

1238 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How do media influence adolescent behavior

Celebrity by definition means “a person, who has a prominent profile and commands some degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media” (Merriam Dictionary). Numerous teenagers today have an inaccurate definition of a celebrity; they observe them as idols in situations such as what to wear, how to date and even future careers. These prominent celebrities and their influence in social media are apparent. Through this, teens are given the opportunity to follow short term relationships, drugs, ridiculous fights and alcohol consumption, exhibited by the many celebrities admired today, viewing this as an ideal lifestyle. In the article,” Negative influences of Celebrities on Teens,” Alyssa Gauna claims that celebrities demonstrate negative influence on teens, which can be validated through the way teenagers’ perception of themselves and reality is ultimately configured.

Teenagers today have a difficult time finding their genuine identity due to them imitating their idols. Celebrities are seen everywhere from magazines to television; therefore they are viewed as role models for most teenagers. When teenagers visit the mall or even watch a movie, they can see their favorite celebrity wearing a certain hairstyle or attire and ultimately view that as the best, making them want to purchase the item to look like celebrities such as Kim Kardashian or Beyonce. There is nothing wrong with wanting to purchase items that celebrities promote but it becomes a reoccurring problem, when teenagers start to believe that if they do not obtain these material possessions, they are not pretty or not with the in crowd. In return, this prohibits teenagers from actually exhibiting who they truly want to be. They are soon faced wit...

... middle of paper ...

...how that promotes celebrities positivity is when she discussed her own insecurities having a “humongous forehead” and how she took a while to embrace her insecurity; therefore turning that insecurity into inspiration to show her unique beauty in photos. Banks has continuously validated that celebrities can use their influence to promote their fans to strive for positive attributes as individuals.

Celebrities carry so much influence on young individuals today. These prominent celebrities and their influence in social media are apparent. Inevitably teens are given the opportunity to follow short term relationships, drugs, ridiculous fights and alcohol consumption, exhibited by the many celebrities admired today, viewing this as an ideal lifestyle. But in many cases not all celebrities demonstrate detrimental actions to the youth some have promoted wonderful deeds

Show More
Related

  • Beauty: The Media Profits by Making Girls Hate Themselves

    1166 Words  | 3 Pages

    Female beauty ideals are an overwhelming force in teen media. Approximately 37% of articles in leading magazines for teen girls emphasize a focus on physical appearance. This is none to surprising considering two of the top contenders in this media genre are Seventeen and Teen Vogue. CosmoGIRL and Elle Girl were among the ranks of popular teen magazines, but in recent years have become exclusively online publications. Add in a dash of publications Tiger Beat and Bop, and it becomes glaringly obvious that girls are charged with the prime directive of looking good to get the guy. The story becomes more disturbing when the actual audience, which includes girls at least as young as eleven years old, is considered. In a stage when girls are trying for the first time to establish their identities, top selling publications are telling them that their exteriors should be their primary concern of focus. Of course, this trend doesn’t stop with magazines. A study conducted in 1996 found a direct correlation between the “amount of time an adolescent watches soaps, movies and music videos” a...

    Read More

  • Mindy Kaling's Influence On Society

    622 Words  | 2 Pages

    Celebrities hold a strong power to influence the lifestyle trends of an audience. As members of the entertainment industry, celebrities are looked up to as role models by a large general public. With such high exposure, celebrities essentially hold the power to positively or negatively influence their followers, from fashion trends to behavioral tendencies, the attitudes and lifestyle habits of celebrities influence cultural qualities and the way in which many people function within society. Mindy Kaling’s career started when she became an intern on the popular show “Late Night with Conan O’ Brien”. Mindy was a 19-year-old sophomore at Dartmouth College when she first started her internship.

    Read More

  • Portrayal of Teens in the Media

    367 Words  | 1 Pages

    Have you ever met someone who acted just as teens are stereotyped? Not many people have because they do not exist. Real teens are poorly portrayed in the media and are the complete opposite of their stereotypes. Books and TV shows make teens out to be wild or crazy, irresponsible and out of control. One hardly ever hears about teen-heroes. Instead, newspapers and magazines are plastered with stories of teens and crime. And while looking at commercial billboards and other related media, the regular teen seems to be sex-crazed and image-obsessed.

    Read More

  • Arnold Brown Identity

    1104 Words  | 3 Pages

    Why is that all blogs or media sites only pay attention to the bad behavior? We see videos of famous people getting drunk, doing drugs, and even being disrespectful. Eventually, we see this domino effect on young girls, they start being rebellious, start to talk back to their parents even go to parties and drink. Nowadays, celebrities are seen as role models to these kids. What kind of example are these celebrities providing to teenagers when they can barely control their life. Role models are supposed to be someone you admire, someone you look up to and try and follow their examples. Not someone who lives a fake life and you barely know. As stated in an article called “Why this generation is so completely obsessed with the idea of Celebrity” Adam Pliskin explains the real reason to why we follow celebrities as much as we do. This is because we secretly want fame ourselves.

    Read More

  • The portrayal of young people in the media.

    1220 Words  | 3 Pages

    This essay will look at the different ways in which young people are portrayed in the media. It will focus on how the idea of childhood innocence has been challenged by the media and rather than ‘little angels’ children are now seen as ‘little devils’ in the public eye. By looking at ‘The Bulger Case of 1993’ we can see where the idea of ‘little devils’ and children as evil beings began. It will examine why media stories of young people are focused much more on negative aspects such as crime and gang culture rather than positive ones. It will also look at how television programmes such as ‘Teen Mom’ and ‘Skins’ portray the youth of today and whether these programmes come across as a positive or negative portrayal of teenagers. The idea of a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ will also be examined and whether the way the media portrays children can be harmful to the construction of their identities and possibly lead to alienation.

    Read More

  • Media And Eating Disorders

    973 Words  | 2 Pages

    The media shows women that represent beauty, even if these women are not real. This means the women in magazines that teenagers wish to look like is not authentic. Many teenagers don’t understand the difference of what is real and fake. So, they believe that the ave...

    Read More

  • Influence Social Media Influence

    1328 Words  | 3 Pages

    While the SNSs can be used for positive changes in the world, often times they are used for promoting unethical behavior, such as dishonesty, stealing, and drug use. Many celebrities and people online display a lavish, reckless lifestyle. They boast about all the money they possess on Twitter, post a picture of themselves smoking on Instagram, and record Snapchats of countless hours of partying. While these acts alone are not considered unethical, they encourage teenagers to life the same lifestyle. The problems begin when these viewers go to extremes in order to obtain the same possessions. For instance, some teenagers can fall into selling drugs or robbing stores to have the same money and luxurious belongings. Teenagers are quick to find an ‘easy way of living’ that is unethical and supports the lifestyle they desire. In a study about the influence of smoking and alcohol on adolescents, researchers (Fujimoto, Huang, Soto, and Valente, 2014) note, “This supports previous findings that SNS use alone does not pose risks, rather it is the content exchanged through SNSs that trigger behavioral influences” (p7). Teenagers must be responsible about the type of accounts they follow on social networking sites. Constantly seeing famous people behaving recklessly can subconsciously pressure teenagers into acting the same way. Another

    Read More

  • Sexualization of Children through the Media

    1019 Words  | 3 Pages

    "Children are influenced by media–they learn by observing, imitating, and making behaviors their own" (APA, 2001, p.1224). Girl’s as young as 4-years sees Britney Spears music clip “Baby One More Time”, who at the time was a 17-year old girl/world pop icon at the time wearing a school uniform showing off her midriff, wearing a lot of makeup and a short skirt. Disney teen icons such as Miley Cyrus aka Hannah Montana taking personal photos of herself in “sexy” poses and sending it to her ‘older’ boyfriend and then having it all published all over the internet for the entire world to see. Boys also face sexualization too, as has been seen in Calvin Klein ads, where pubescent-looking boys pose provocatively with perfectly sculpted six-pack abs hawking teen fashion These pop culture celebrities both female and male are always in the media, for inappropriate actions and they’re meant to be role models for children. In fact most of these sexualized celebrities are still children themselves. The sad part is it’s not just sexualization being encouraged in the media other negative things such as violence, drug and alcohol use ...

    Read More

  • Celebrities In Popular Culture

    1219 Words  | 3 Pages

    We are part of a generation that is obsessed with celebrity culture. Celebrities are distinctive. Media and consumers alike invented them to be a different race of super beings: flawless, divine and above all the real moral world. In a 1995 New York Times article “In contrast, 9 out of 10 of those polled could think of something

    Read More

  • Teenage Girls and Body Image

    1282 Words  | 3 Pages

    Teenage girls are at an impressionable time in their lives. Mass media is a key part of one of the factors of socialization that become important to teenagers. Teenagers look to the media for entertainment. Whether it is movies, magazines, or even some aspects of social media, teenagers get a lot of influence from the media’s message. The problem with this is the media has a specific way of doing things and can be negative to a susceptible teenage girl.

    Read More

  • Pseudo-Events: The False Reality of Celebrities

    1596 Words  | 4 Pages

    The deception of media consumers allows for the abuse of economic infrastructures of society. An obsession with celebrities’ lives passifies ordinary people in accepting the stratification of the elite businesses and the ordinary citizens. Though pseudo-events and celebrity worship may not be exactly complementary, the similarities of both leaves the public to be utterly vulnerable unless they begin to critically think for themselves.

    Read More

  • Celebrity Influence Essay

    1377 Words  | 3 Pages

    Have you ever think about the influences of celebrities that affect in people life. Celebrity is a kind of pop-culture that combines between interpersonal communication and media, and it creates desires from the people assumption or expectation. Celebrities are the important tools to attract audiences. The media scholars produce the celebrity content from what people expect from life. Celebrities may drive the directions of living such as habits, tastes, attention and ambition among people (Turnere). Nowadays, celebrities are all around us. They are one of the important people who can influence the media such as movies, drama, music magazines, news or even represent the nation. According to the William’s note celebrities are one part which

    Read More

  • Celebrities Should Be Role Models Essay

    832 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to the article “The Effects of Celebrity Role Models on Kids and Teens” by Eliza Martinez,“Many celebrities do not make a secret of alcohol or drug abuse and the glamorization of dying due to an overdose in the media might make your child feel that using these substances is acceptable.” The fans see the celebrities’ work and not the person themself. This is the main reason celebrities make such terrible role models. The fans will idolize them, but they don’t know what the celebrity is like on a personal level. They don’t know the opinion of the celebrity on certain issues. If they did and they agreed with the celebrity, then there is a whole other reason to look up to this person. If a fan disagreed, then they could still like their work and just agree to disagree, but it will never be like that. It is no one’s fault, but that is the main reason celebrities aren’t good role models. That is why parents, siblings, friends, other family, and even fictional characters work as role models. The people that look up to them know their role model personally and therefore know whether or not they agree with the role model’s

    Read More

  • Entertainment that Shape American Culture

    829 Words  | 2 Pages

    When people think of entertainment, media influence often comes to mind. Reality TV stars and celebrities alike have been placed in limelight acting as role models to not only the youth, but society as a whole. This is an example of the negative influences that entertainment can have as it leads people to hold unrealistic standards and expectations for themselves and others. Some may feel that the entertainment industry makes glamourizes immoral behaviors, making them look fun and harmless. The focus on fitting in and on appearance in the entertainment business have heavily impacted the way our society is today, by promoting the need to be a certain way, both in physical physique and behavior. In fact, people who are considered more attractive, or that fit the molds commonly shown to us, have an easier time obtaining jobs and have access to a broader s...

    Read More

  • The Media Presents Negative Role Models

    852 Words  | 2 Pages

    The media has a strong influence on society, both negatively and positively. So when children as young as 6 are being influenced by celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears; we as a society have lost site in what it is to be a positive influence. Kathleen Deveny and Raina Kelly raised awareness in their article “Girls Gone Bad?” which depicts the bad behavior and influences set by celebrities such as Hilton, Lohan, and Spears have any long term affects on young women. Are young women so riveted to the highlights of these celebrities and the media that surrounds their lifestyle that, as Deveny and Kelly boldly puts it, we are raising ‘prosti-tots’? Or can our young women look beyond the bad behavior with lavish lifestyles, and still make a wise decision based on common sense? Not only are young women bombarded with the lifestyle of these celebrities produced by the media but they are plagued with images of how they should behave and what they should look like. This is an adolescent crisis in a young woman’s life because from the stages of preteen to near adulthood is when young women are most susceptible to influence.

    Read More

More about Negative Influences of Celebrities on Teens by Alyssa Gauna

Open Document