29 Task 3

Create an article to explain how celebrities can influence us and shape our identities and relationships. Support your article by including references to examples. Justify your response with details that support your understanding or perception of the global context identities and relationships .

Wether they realize it or not, celebrities have a big impact on our identities, a power which rivals those of world leaders and politicians. This is a lot of influence that they possess, and it can be very harmful to our identities as well as our relationships.

Firstly, celebrities are idolized by all. We look at celebrities, wether they are famous actors like Johnny Depp or Robert Downey Jr, or famous athletes like Lebron James or Christiano Ronaldo, and we wish that we had what they have, wether it is their look, their athleticism, or just their success. This idolization of celebrities took a very nasty turn in 2015, with the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge. It led many young people, who idolized Kylie Jenner and wanted to look like her and be like her to suction the air out of shot glasses, and hold them on their lips to enlarge them. The problem with this challenge was that it was very dangerous, as suctioning all the blood to your lips can cause blood clots and can pop 3 blood vessels, in addition to the shot glass breaking, which would cover the participant in glass.

Secondly, the use of social media by celebrities is very dangerous. They can easily spread false information, and with their larger following, it is very easy to believe it and have this information become prevalent. It also is bad because celebrities can heavily filter what goes onto social media, both in terms of the content that they put out, as well as filters to make the celebrity appear more attractive. Filtering the body creates unhealthy and unnatural body expectations, and can lead to children starving themselves to have a smaller waste, or excessively working out, which can cause eating disorders as well as permanent damage to the muscles, especially at a young age.

Many people might bring up that celebrities are important because they can help to spread awareness about issues in society, such as bullying, and racism, but they fail to recognize that in many situations, these celebrities are either the root or a major factor in these problems. For example, look at TikTok star xobrooklynne. Brooklynne is a major advocate for accepting people for who they are, and not being quick to judge people, and has done great things for the body positivity movement, leading most people to overlook a major controversy surrounding her. While she had this platform, she took part in a group chat on Snapchat in which she, a Canadian, would add trump supporters and republicans, and relentlessly bully them for their political beliefs. One of the leaked messages from her group chat was her telling a republican that “she does not understand why all republicans don’t brutally kill themselves.” This is not something that anyone should say, but the fact that she already had a big following online at that point makes the situation so much worse. Hearing a celebrity say something like that can begin to brainwash kids and force them to follow a political party, even if their personal beliefs do not align with this party.

While there are benefits to having celebrities in the world, there are also many, many issues and problems that can arise from them, and these can greatly affect our own personal beliefs, ideologies, as well as our mental health, and our safety.