Celebrity Culture and Popular Culture

Written by Kenai Nathanael

    Go home, wash up, do chores, but before that let’s see what's happening on the Internet first. Looking at your preferred social media of choice you might find some names that are trending. It’s no surprise, they’re celebrities, there’s no question who they are. In fact, there might be a loud sigh wondering what controversy they’ve gotten themselves into again. 

    It seems like it’s just another day when we hear another story about a celebrity. Heck, news websites, newspapers, and magazines all have a section dedicated to them. There’s no way that it has always been like this, right? Why do people care about celebrities so much? What even is a celebrity?

    According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the word celebrity simply refers to someone famous. But I would rather look at it from another angle. Another word to refer to these people is “star”. Stars are high up, completely separate from us, but can be seen shining brightly from practically anywhere. Stars define history, cultures have been built around stars. Navigation and human progress wouldn’t be possible without them. With all that being said, I would conclude that a celebrity is a popular person whose popularity is largely defined by their influence over popular culture through their prevalence in popular discourse.

    By that definition, what we call celebrity culture, that being the constant discussion and at some points of obsession over celebrities, is not very surprising at all. To be a celebrity is to be the topic of conversation. To be a celebrity is to become an icon, something no longer just human, but a star.

Like the way old sailors followed the stars, people copy what their favorite celebrity does. When they start wearing a certain brand of clothes, people follow. When they say something is good, people will say it’s good as well. People will follow nearly anything from celebrities: fashion, lifestyle, medication, and even beliefs.

    There are quite a few examples of this. Have you seen the surge of Korean hairstyles and fashion recently? In a lot of ways, it’s Korean culture slowly seeping through into our country, but it also is caused by the popularity of these Korean celebrities. These Korean men or women that you see on TV, hear on radio, or even on some streaming service. They’re good looking, they’re wealthy, they’re popular, and you want to be just like them.

    Back then this influence would come from TV, movies, even your magazines and newspapers, but now we live in an age with social media. Now you’re not just surrounded by it, you’re bombarded and assaulted from every direction. Now there’s even a new type of celebrity, the influencer.

    I would call an influencer a microcelebrity, not as big as a celebrity but among their followers their influence is just as strong if not stronger. They might only have a tiny fraction of the fans Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would have, but these people still have them as their star. They discuss the things that this person may do and the work they’ve been in. They start forming an identity, forming their own culture.

    The final question that I ask is, “In this day and age, isn’t a lot of our pop culture just celebrity culture?”. Even with Hollywood on the downturn, the Internet still fosters communities which nearly exclusively discuss the work and life of specific people, either out of curiosity, or more commonly awe and respect. Other than that, celebrities and influencers have held so much influence over us that we often follow their lead to find our opinion on some really pressing social issues.

    Or is it something not new? We humans had lived in tribes for centuries, following a key figure in them. Our culture has always been influenced by the powerful and the popular. Is celebrity culture even a really new thing?

    Really what I’m saying is that celebrity culture has affected society in many ways, too many ways for me to simply list out in an article. But at the same time, the popular and powerful influencing society is nothing new. Just with how fast the world moves now, it seems like culture is something that can change in a blink of an eye.