Before getting into the analysis post, I thought it would be a good idea to define what a celebrity is. To me, a celebrity is someone who is widely known. I don’t really know how to differentiate between someone who is a celebrity and someone who is famous. I think ‘celebrity’ is someone who is temporarily famous-someone who is not necessarily talented in any outstanding way. For example, reality tv stars, news casters, and other such people could be taken as a celebrity. To me, someone who is famous is someone who has a special talent. A singer, actor, musician, or an athlete is someone who is famous.
Whether they’ve been romantically linked, helped to raise money, or created songs that raise awareness of a certain campaign, celebrities have had a very subtle but powerful role in American Politics. For years, there has been an ongoing debate on whether or not this should happen.
Many say that celebrities don’t have the same collateral, or the same amount of credibility as a government official would when dealing with certain issues. Some claim that celebrities are stupid and they should keep to doing movies and other things. Others realize the power of their opinions and support and decide that they would love to be backed by these individuals. It has also been said that many celebrities represent the opinion of the “average” person. Being “average” is a very delicate term however. In short, it does not matter weather you think pop culture should be involved in politics. The recent and rapid rise the rate of voting for governmental elections and the rise of celebrity involvment to such elections can not be ignored.
In the past presidential election, Will.I.am, along with many other music artists created a song to the sound of one of Barack Obama’s speeches. They used the slogan “Yes We Can” to empower people. They wanted to give people hope and help them to know that change can happen
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsV2O4fCgjk). In addition to creating songs, celebrities have banned together to create t-shirts and other memorabilia. The profits of these items have all been donated to the candidate’s campaign.
Far more than anything, celebrities influence the general public because we see how glamorous of a lifestyle they live, we see the “coolness”, we see everything that we want. After seeing these things, some might say to themselves, “hey, they have things going for them, maybe I should do what they do!”. This can be good and bad. Just because someone seems to have everything, doesn’t necessarily mean they have it (“All That Glitters Is Not Gold”).
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