The Influence of Celebrities
Are they really so power?
Introduction
Celebrities and celebrity culture have been and still are a major aspect of contemporary American culture. We see their impact and footprint everywhere: movies, TV shows, social media, advertisements, sports, etc. Given their mass following and presence, many easily (and reasonably) assume that celebrities subsequently have a major influence in society. But when looked at closely, this assumption is much more complicated than it seems. For example, if your favorite celebrity endorsed a political candidate, would you actually vote for that candidate?
Thus the question arises: How much power do celebrities actually have?
For power?
In one argument, celebrities certainly do have power. This is especially true for teenagers and younger adults, where most of “stan” culture comes from. With social media and the current digital age, celebrities can notoriously have powerful influence over the way teens view themselves, their bodies, and even the world around them, leading to a spur of negative issues such as eating disorders and depression.
But in contrast, celebrities can also have great power in being great role models and spreading healthy messages for those same teenagers. The strongest instance of this can be seen in Logic’s “1–800–273–8255” campaign in 2017. In an effort to spread awareness on suicide, his hit song actually did help lower suicide rates by 5.5% and increase the number of calls to the suicide lifeline by 50% among teens according to Complex during the three months following the song’s release.
So here, it appears that in certain causes and age groups, celebrities have potential for tremendous (positive or negative) influence. Yet on the other end, such as in politics, it seems that celebrities hold no power at all.
No power?
Particularly starting in 2016, celebrities have increasingly begun to voice their own opinions in various political issues — whether that be supporting or condemning a candidate. However, celebrities’ opinions do not necessarily influence others’ beliefs and, surprisingly, can actually have an opposite effect. Take the 2018 Tennessee Senate elections for example, where Taylor Swift, for the first time in her career, publicly voiced her political opinion by supporting democratic candidate Phil Bredson. The result? Bredson lost by a huge margin to republican Marsha Blackburn. To further support this, Forbes reported that in a 2019 survey by Hills-HarrisX, 65% of people said that their election vote has no influence from celebrities’ political views, 24% stated that celebrity endorsements of candidates would actually make them less likely to vote for that candidate, and only 11% stated that they would be more likely to vote for a candidate supported by a celebrity.
Another case is the Chick-fil-a drama in 2012. After CEO Dan Cathy made anti same-sex marriage comments, numerous celebrities called for a boycott on the fast-food chain. However, this actually created a counter movement which resulted in Chick-fil-a sales increasing by 12%.
Conclusion
The answer for celebrities’ failed — and even detrimental — swaying is obvious: in areas like politics or some social issues, the age group concerned with that topic is no longer just teens or young adults. The amount of “power” a celebrity has appears to mainly just depend on the age group concerned. Celebrities’ influence tends to be weaker with the older generation compared to younger people. Thus, older adults are less likely to listen to and may even be irritated by celebrities voicing their opinions, partially explaining the results of that survey mentioned earlier. However this raises another question: When current teenagers reach adulthood and have considerably more freedom and impact in America, will those same celebrities, who teenagers “grew up with,” have more or less power? Will teens still be easily influenced by those childhood celebrities?
