Celebrities offer poor role models

By Erin Wiley

Friday, January 20, 2006

America has gone to the celebrities. We are obsessed. Hardly a day goes by when a hot new item of gossip about Brad and Angelina, or some other equally appealing celebrity, doesn’t make headlines across the nation. I’ve even had conversations with people who say things like, I am more upset that Nick and Jessica broke up than I am that you and your old boyfriend split.

It seems that it has become the social norm in this country to know every little detail about all the A-List celebrities’ personal lives.

Of course they are interesting, but at the same time I must wonder why it has come to this, especially when normal people want their lives kept completely private. This is most likely due to how accessible everything is in this technologically advanced age.

The Internet has become a tool to purchase anything and everything, and eBay has become one large marketplace to buy items that have to do with celebrities. Yes, autographs can be purchased, but people are actually buying more crazy items like T-shirts that are exactly like Britney Spears wore, or even small pieces of a dress that she wore in a Pepsi commercial. I see no point in owning this stuff.

Print and broadcast media are also churning out information to the American public at a rapid rate. Without these outlets, no one would know who wore what outfit, what secret make-out session happened at a premier party and who dumped whom.

According to the Consumer Magazine Advertising Source, an advertising resource published by leading industry magazines, popular entertainment magazines such as US Weekly, Entertainment Weekly and National Enquirer sell roughly 5 million copies through subscriptions and on the newsstands, on a weekly basis.

Shows like “The Fabulous Life Of,” on VH1 and the “101 Countdown Entertainment Specials” series on E! Entertainment Television also give a rather intimate glance at all that is the celebrity glamour.

It seems like nothing in these celebrities’ lives is kept from the general public. Not only the good stuff, the bad stuff is revealed too, which is another reason why it is hard to believe people leading normal lives emulate them.

Stars lead lives that are just as tough, if not tougher than the average person’s life. Their drug abuse, eating disorders and tumultuous love lives are splashed everywhere.

In recent history, mega-stars like Lindsay Lohan and Whitney Houston have admitted to using drugs. In Female First, a women’s lifestyle magazine from the United Kingdom, Kelly Osbourne blamed her drug abuse on fame. Lohan and Mary-Kate Olsen have notoriously suffered from eating disorders.

I don’t think I need to mention the quick flings, or long relationships that end in bitter divorces that plague Hollywood.

Average Americans, meaning non-celebrities, suffer from these problems too. Living life as a person not in the spotlight is tough too, but I do not understand why we witness these stars battling addictions and other problems yet still strive to mirror their lives.

We are young and experiencing quite possibly the best four, or five, years of our lives: College. So put down those gossip rags and stop trying to emulate celebrities.

Live your own life. Take the time spent here making memories, having fun, building relationships, making them work and living with what we have, instead of striving to be something that isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

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