"But Selena Gomez Did It": A Look Into Celebrity Influence and Responsibility

By Julia Bianco on February 17, 2014

Responsibility is a difficult subject to talk about. It’s easy to say that I’m responsible for my own personal hygiene, and that my friend is responsible for finishing his own homework, and that my roommate is responsible for feeding her bunny. But the lines get a bit blurry when you talk about what it means to be socially responsible.

Consider this example: if my friend decides not to do his homework and spends his time goofing off instead, that might make me want to skip my homework and goof off too. He didn’t ask me to goof off with him. He wasn’t trying to be a bad influence— he probably didn’t give a second thought to how his goofing off might affect me, and that’s not a bad thing. My friend’s negative influence on me was unintentional, and its effects were fairly limited.

Now, this whole situation would become a lot more complicated if Selena Gomez were to send out a tweet to her 18 million followers saying, “Homework is so lame, skipping that for tonight.” Another action without any intent to hurt anyone, but with a much larger audience.

Photo by xxWHATislove?xx on Flickr.com

It’s hard to deny that celebrities have influence on what people do, especially young people. Open up any blog on good parenting and you’ll see claims about keeping kids away from the dangerous media that will make them anorexic drug addicts with loose morals and sailor mouths. Ask any helicopter mom and she’ll tell you that celebrities are bad news.

It’s difficult to fault parents for having this opinion. According to some studies, celebrities can have just as much influence on children as their own parents do in certain areas like body image, self esteem, and substance use, and that’s a scary thought. Sure, if your child happens to become fixated with a cleaner, intelligent, more put together celebrity like Emma Watson or Kristen Bell, parents could actually end up being helped by the obsession. But if they happen to start looking up to Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, or any of the numerous former child stars who have fallen off the wagon in the past few years, they’re in for a whole mess of trouble.

Photo by blog de la tele on Flickr.com

Parents who happen to fall into this unlucky boat often find themselves complaining about the total unfairness of it all— why is it that they should have to deal with the negative influence that these celebrities have had on their children, while the celebrities themselves never have to own up to their responsibility?

That’s where it comes up again, though. That word. Responsibility. And it all comes down to one fundamental question: are celebrities responsible for the way their actions affect their fans?

There aren’t many people who would put the blame for my not doing my homework on my friend. He made a life decision that should have had nothing to do with me, and it’s not his fault that I decided to follow him. However, people would definitely blame a mass cessation of homework due to her offending tweet on Ms. Gomez, because “she should know better.”

Photo by Todd Huffman on Flickr.com

Being famous must be pretty terrible, when you really sit down and think about it. Sure, you’re rich, but there are too many paparazzi following you around to do anything fun with it. You’re popular, but you can never tell whether someone wants to be your friend because of who you are or because of who you are. Your entire life is under a microscope for people to examine. It can’t be easy.

So why should we be putting the onus on celebrities to keep themselves in check? Why should we force these normal teenagers to always do their homework, to never make a mistake, to be the perfect role models for our children? They already have enough to worry about.

The list of responsibilities for a celebrity reads very similarly to the list of responsibilities for any normal person:

1. Take care of yourself. Don’t drink too much, don’t do drugs, and don’t forget to shower every once in a while. Also, always wear sunscreen.

2. Keep your shit in check. Don’t get arrested, don’t drink and drive, and try not to let your problems ruin the lives of your friends and family.

3. Don’t screw everything up.

End of list.

Celebrities, just like us, have to think about how their actions may affect other people— no forcing your friend to go out drinking with you the night before they have a big test— but they don’t have to think about the indirect effects that they may have on someone else, because that’s that person’s job.

If you’re a parent worried about celebrity culture negatively affecting your child’s development, then give them something else to think about. Show them a good book, bring them to work with you, start them on a new hobby or sport. We spend so much time focusing on the problems with celebrity culture that we forget that there are other cultures to think about.

We all need someone to look up to, and for some people, celebrities are the easiest role models to find. Their hyper-presence in our society is so apparent that it’s almost unavoidable, and the constant access to information about their every move is intoxicating, for both us and them. The amount of influence they assert is almost unhealthy.

But that doesn’t mean it’s up to them to control how their actions may indirectly affect other people. It’s up to us. Because with just a little bit of extra effort, we can open up whole new worlds of people to look up to. Heroes are all around us— all we have to do is look.

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