Obsession with Celebrities
From Charlie Sheen to the Queen; we follow them, we love them. But has our obsession with celebrities gone too far? So ask yourself: why are we “infected” with this viral disease? Does celebrity worship syndrome affect us? What type of celebrity do we classify as a one we would follow? Why has the Twitter revolution changed our views of celebrities? And most importantly, who do we blame for our addictive behaviour? We must turn away from our celebrity driven life and be our own mind controllers. So why are we “infected” with this viral disease?
Let us be honest with ourselves, we have all imagined what it would be like to be a celebrity; living someone else’s life. We were built and programmed to like what we think is “cool” or “attractive” which are also words we use to describe celebrities. We see them all the time in films, on television and in advertisements all around the world. We acknowledge them as if they were “perfect”. But this is not true, yes of course they look and act differently when they are in the public eye but they are not like that in private. We see this when the world’s best golfer; Tiger Woods cheats on his wife with 12 different women.
This shows that they are not perfect as we imagined, but flawed like us. Celebrity worship syndrome or CWS is a scientifically proven obsessive-addictive disorder. It can affect anyone who is over-exposed to the media surrounding the lives of celebrities. Psychologists have indicated that there are three types of CWS. The first is “Entertainment-social”. This occurs when a group of people watch or speak about celebrities. The second CWS disorder is “Intense-personal”. This is shown when people share compulsive feelings about celebrities. The last CWS disorder is “Borderline-pathology”.
How does all of this happen? It is more common for women to “copy” the image of celebrities. For example, regular women can see what the stars are wearing and often find tips on how to buy cheap knockoffs of their outfits. This concerns people who have little control of their behaviours and fantasies they have on the topic of celebrities. According to research conducted in the United Kingdom, there is a relation between celebrity worship syndrome and other mental disorder. This is a mildly-serious condition that can be reversed if professional help and advice is taken.
Who do we find attractive and consider worth following? It’s not surprising that gorgeous people wind up famous. What’s less obvious is that famous people often wind up gorgeous: The more we see a certain face, the more our brain likes it, whether or not it’s actually beautiful. Thanks to what is known as “the exposure effect,” says James Bailey, a psychologist at George Washington University, the pleasurable sensation that is set off when we see a certain celebrity “begins to create a neurochemical groove,” making her image easier for our brains to process.
This begins to explain why Jennifer Aniston, not exactly a classic cover girl was again named one of People magazine’s 50 “most beautiful” in the world this year. Twitter, a world wide phenomenon. But why and how has the revolution of Twitter changed our views of celebrities? Before Twitter existed, all we had to connect with celebrities were magazines and television. But now celebrities have found a new way to communicate with us. Through Twitter, they can tell us what it is that they are currently doing and share their personal thoughts on anything. For example, Justin Bieber tweeted ‘Come home to me is such a great song.
I thought I would do a little something with it. ’ But there have been studies which suggest that celebrities who do not use Twitter have a higher chance of prolonging their careers. In my opinion, this would be a fair statement because celebrities who do not use Twitter will live a more private life under less stress and so find it easier to keep their career going for as long as possible. Celebrities like Katy Perry who does not use Twitter has more privacy and less stress unlike those who constantly use Twitter like Justin Bieber are likely to experience an invasion of privacy.
If we all were asked: who do we blame for being so attached to celebrities? We would all blame the media for publicizing the lives of the famous. But what we are not realizing is that we only have ourselves to blame for this behaviour. We push the media for more information which we then indulge ourselves in. We see this all the time when people contact news agencies and press aggressively for as much information as they could possible get. It has also been suggested by many that celebrities that are getting rich and famous forfeit their right to privacy.
This could potentially be a disastrous decision that the celebrities make as they most certainly will lose their privacy and spend the rest of their lives under constant pressure from the media and the general public. Can we change our lives and turn away from the distractions of celebrities? A short answer would be yes. It is definitely unnecessary to follow the lives of the rich and famous so closely. If we get too addicted to celebrities, we need to seek help and refrain from this.
Celebrity worship syndrome is a serious mental condition that we can treat as long as we are ready to reduce the amount of information about the celebrities we get. What we do not realize is that there is no one else more attractive than us on the inside. We need to realize that using Twitter will only aggravate us to ask for more about celebrities. Most importantly, we must stop blaming the media and blame ourselves instead for our addiction to celebrities. We will find that living without the influence of celebrities hard at first whenever we choose to stop following them but the end result will be rewarding.
