Cult of the Celebrity

I had a very hard time relating my pop culture topic, Facebook, with the the concepts of heroes and the cult of the celebrity. After doing a lot of thinking I became desperate and decided to do a Facebook search for cult of the celebrity. To my surprise there was actually 3 search results, one of which was called Cult of Celebrity. The first line of the page gives a definition of the cult of the celebrity, “Famous for being famous, or famous for nothing, in popular culture terminology, refers to someone who attains celebrity status for no particular identifiable reason, or who achieves fame through association with a true celebrity.” As a society we are obsessed with celebrities, but more for the bad things they do than the good. How many articles have you read or seen about celebrities giving to charity? How many have you read or seen about Lindsey Lohan or Paris Hilton's sex tape? We use the social media site, Facebook, to pass on these articles and to discuss them with our friends. There are even pages dedicated to celebrities that allow people to get updates on the celebrities and some are simply there to give people the “juicy gossip” they are looking for. While you may see some posts about the good celebrities do or how a man that saved a child from a car accident became a hero, it is not nearly as news worthy as how OJ Simpson got away with murder or that Michael Jackson is a child molester. I think that it is sad that the bad things that celebrities do is more important to society than the heroism shown by so many on a daily basis. I believe that as a society we should stop rewarding bad behavior and start encouraging the bravery of the “common” man (or woman).

References

Facebook.com (n.d.). Cult of Celebrity. Retrieved March 5, 2012 from

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cult-of-celebrity/106507002719864.