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POP CULTURE: THE CELEBRITY WORSHIP SYNDROME
Celebrity worship syndrome is an addictive disorder which makes an individual be overly
drawn to a given celebrity personal life (Rojek et al., 1-3). According to a psychologist, a lot of
people get obsessed with films, pop stars and sport and the common factors that are depicted
across is the fact that all these celebrities are deemed to be public figures. Some important
questions come into the mind while exploring this topic, it is something known to everyone the
kind of problems celebrities faces with addiction, what about a typical person that become
addicted or obsessed to that famous person? Do the addiction hold some evidential proof or is it
just a way of becoming part of something special or famous? Does your favorite celebrity
concerned about you? And finally is their dangers associated with such obsessions. These are the
important questions that build on the foundation of this essay, as such the critical aspect of
celebrity worship that forms the basis of this paper is addressed.
There are various celebrity worship dimensions that are worth considering in this essay,
however, this paper narrows its findings to the three which are considered to be more essential.
They are discussed below.
The entertainment-social: This admiration level is linked to the celebrity ability to draw
the attention of their fun. It is commonly used in describing a low level of addiction. For
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instance, my friend and I are obsessed with the idea of discussing the current issues facing
celebrities. It can also be denoted as a form of addiction such as following celebrities in social
media. It has really been observed to have a large number of negative impacts such as poor
eating habits, low self-esteem and poor body image. This can be backed by research which was
conducted on a female adolescence group between the age17 and 20 (Choi et al., 304-324).
The intense-personal: This dimension is regarded as the intermediate level of addiction
that is greatly linked with neurotics and associated with psychoticism in terms of personal
behavior. For instance, an intense-personal attitude can entail claims such as, I regard my
celebrity to be my love of life" (Choi et al., 304-324). According to the recent study conducted, it
has been shown that individuals who worship celebrities in that given manner suffer from low
self-esteem in relation to their type of body, particularly if they perceive the celebrity to be
attractive physically (Narula et al., 302).
The borderline-pathological: This type of dimension is considered to be the most
compromising type of obsession towards celebrities. It shows fantasies and unconquerable type
of behaviour of a person towards a celebrity. Usually, it is expressed by personal remarks such as
' If someone was to give me two thousand dollars today, I would spend a big portion in
purchasing the mobile phone used by my favourite celebrity (Ward et al., 313-335).
Dr Maltby gave a summary of his team research in an interview conducted by the BBC. He said:
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The data obtained from 4000 people showed that 5 per cent demonstrated obsessional
tendencies. About 9 per cent showed an intense interest in celebrities. 14% of the number said
that they would allocate special time in order to read much about their favourite artist. The
remaining 75 per cent of the number do not in any way take an active interest in the lives of the
celebrities" (Zsila et al., 654-664).
Mental health
I believe that every person is aware of the challenges facing celebrities due to addiction, what
about a typical person that becomes addicted to that celebrity? There is a diagnosis of mental
health that acknowledges celebrity worship syndrome. There is an accurate scale that has been
made in order to rank the level of addiction a person can become. The obsession object can be a
television personality, a given movie star, sports figure or music celebrity. These individuals
share one common fact, they are all greatly invisible.
Celebrity worship is often born out of admiration that slowly develops in a person. After it grows
out in this form of harmless pastime, the person starts to be addicted. The person begins to spend
a proportionally large amount of their precious time trying to get a glimpse of the celebrity way
of life. By watching them and trying all means to interact with them in social media, emails or
even attending their live concerts.
It's important to note that not all people who develop celebrity worship syndrome suffer from a
mental health problem however There is a study that denotes that along with the behaviour and
symptoms of celebrity worship syndrome their exist a high rate of stress, anxiety and depression.
Usually, as the addiction moves into a real obsession, the person will start to believe that there
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exists a true relationship with a celebrity. This can, in turn, result in a comprehensive fantasy
which may then escalate into delusional thoughts and dangerous behaviors.
The individuals that have been linked with entertainment-social dimensions are often attracted to
celebrities due to their perceived knack of entertaining and becoming a conversation social focus
with the individuals that have such similar mind. Such individuals are moderately affected with
the emerging psychological disorder, they are considered to be extraverts’ people in possession
of a big number of friends. They are inspired and passionate about incorporating the names of
celebrities in their conversation.
An article that was used to seek the views of the people reported that.
A biologists of Evolutionary says that it is in good faith and naturally that people look up to
others who get attention due to the assumption that they have succeeded in the society. In the
times of prehistory, it would imply according to respect to the elders and the good hunters"
(Turner, 11-20).
Do celebrity care about you?
In order to answer this question, it is important to understand the primary reason why people
praise celebrities in the first place. We tend to worship celebrities because we believe they form
part of the cultural system of the society, the essential part of the culture. All celebrities know
what their fans expect and how best they can make them happy. They then build a particular type
of personality that will satisfy their fun emotionally. They apply different channels in reaching
out to their fans such as music, movies, literature, fashions, and artworks among others. Of
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course, celebrities will always say how much love they have for their funs whenever they have
been interviewed. They will always say all sorts of good things just to please their fans.
However, the reality of life is that these celebrities view us a collective number in the era of
social media and the internet. They see theirs funs as a number of viewers and likes needed for
their own personal development. They hardly care what their fans get in return. It is not easy to
reach out to a celebrity whenever one is faced with a personal problem until they respond.
Majority of them don't get the time to read through what their fans are saying, and even the few
that read will barely respond.
Conclusion
It is good to respect or idolizes a given celebrity on the context of admiring and transforming us
to be important people who always aspire to become. We should offer them the baseline respect
we can afford to give other people like the love of our lives. This is because some may be
income years turn our lives into what we have always craved to get. However, we should put
boundaries on how we associate ourselves with them, offering all the time we have to them to a
point of treating them like God consequently may have an adverse impact on our lives. Dr Robin
says, celebrities do not necessarily imply that they are observed as role models, people are
entertained and thrilled even if they don't go out to imitate them" (Rojek et al., 1-3). For that
reason, every person who finds himself drawn to a given celerity to a point that his or her life is
stagnated with no progress should reconsider initiating the necessary step that may reduce the
level of addiction such a regulating the time they have with the celebrity.
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Work cited
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Studies (2015): 1-3.
Turner, Graeme. "Approaching celebrity studies." Celebrity studies 1.1 (2010): 11-20.
Ward, Pete. "Celebrity worship as parareligion: Bieber and the Beliebers." University of
California Press, 2017. 313-335.
Narula, Navneet, and Parvathy Varma. "The influence of personality (extraversion and
neuroticism) on body image, mediated by celebrity worship, among Thai female
adolescents in Bangkok." Scholar: Human Sciences 9.2 (2018): 302.
Yuliawati, Livia, and Sukma Rani Moerkardjono. "Teenagers Behavior and Celebrity: The Other
Side of Creative Industry in Media." (2012).
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PRADIRI, ADISMARA PUTRI. HUBUNGAN ANTARA DIMENSI KEPRIBADIAN
EKSTRAVERSI EYSENCK DENGAN TINGKAT ENTERTAINMENT-SOCIAL
CELEBRITY WORSHIP SYNDROME PADA REMAJA WANITA PENGGUNA
MEDIA SOSIAL. Diss. Universitas Airlangga, 2018.
Zsila, Ágnes, Lynn E. McCutcheon, and Zsolt Demetrovics. "The association of celebrity
worship with problematic Internet use, maladaptive daydreaming, and desire for fame."
Journal of behavioral addictions 7.3 (2018): 654-664.
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Rojek, Chris. "A short history of celebrity, by Fred Inglis: Princeton, Princeton University Press,
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Choi, Sejung Marina, and Nora J. Rifon. "Who is the celebrity in advertising? Understanding
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