Celebrities fans just can't get enough

What is a Celebrity "Idol"?

In this case, we will be focusing on celebrity Idols. There are various reasons why people, especially young people, idolize, follow and want to know more about someone, whom they consider to be celebrities.

They tend to admire, idolize and worship celebrities because they are considered important, powerful, and famous.

Celebrities appear on the media, which allows us to peek into their lives. They seem to live a different and more interesting lifestyle than ours, or so the media makes us think.

There is a subconscious desire in the human race to idolize anything that seems better, greater, richer, well known, or powerful.

Most people have an unconscious desire to be famous and popular, even if they do not admit it openly. When they adore people, who are famous and popular, they feel that they associate with them, and are a part of their lives.

Some of us want to live a better life and reading about celebrities, watching them on TV, or following them on Instagram and other social networks, makes us feel that we are participating and taking part in their glory. We feel close to them as if they are our friends, and this gives us a good feeling.

There are people, who imitate their idols, wear the same kind of clothes, use the same perfume, or try to behave and act as they do. This gives them the feeling of being close to their idols, and take part in their fame and glory.

The origins of Celebrity and Worshipping Culture

Modern celebrity culture did not begin with Hollywood, nor the internet, but in the 18^th century, when the modern terms “celebrity” and “star” first became widespread.

Celebrities are considered people who were known during their lifetimes to more people than one could possibly know, for many centuries, rulers and conquerors were the primary celebrities.

Only in the 18^th century did the publics begin to take a strong interest in a large number of living authors, artists, performers, scientists, and politicians.  

By the 18th century, a host of performers and authors had stalkers and groupies; by the 19^th century, many received hundreds of letters yearly requesting autographs.

A century before the rise of radio and television commercials, celebrities endorsed wigs, face creams, powders, pianos, and bottled water. 

Celebrity culture would not have taken off without newspapers; journalists were able to use an already existing interest with celebrities to attract more readers and make more profit.

Until the 1830s, newspapers in England, France, and the United States were expensive publications, sponsored by wealthy patrons and read by a small, selected group of subscribers, who were more likely to be wealthy and rich.

This changed in the 1830s, the news became more commercial and accessible. To increase circulation and to reach a wider audience, publishers began to charge readers only a penny instead of the traditional six cents and began to rely on advertisements, subscriptions, and daily sales, including street sales, to turn a profit.

Newspapers were so identified with celebrities that in 1841 it began to promote stars and give them the exposure they needed to become more recognized.

According to a journalism student in 1912, a US newspaperman explained,

The people wanted to read about celebrities. In turn, celebrities themselves became aware of the power of the press, even arguing with editors about their coverage.

In the following years, celebrity culture kept developing as the public did, in the 19^th century, the public became obsessed with theatre, as more and more stars made their appearances and became recognized.

In the following century, Hollywood and films became the next best thing.   

The breakdown of broadcast television that began in the 1980s, and the rise of the Internet since the 1990s have returned celebrity culture to its more anarchic 19th-century roots.

The Power of Social Media and Micro-Celebrities

Celebrity Culture is always changing, developing, and discovering new ways to keep up with its audience. Nowadays the main medium used to connect and to provide information about celebrities is social media.

Social media allows fans to know where their favorite celebrities are, what they are doing, and just about anything else you could possibly want to know.

Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok make celebrities accessible to their loyal fanbase and to the general population.

As mentioned above, fans found themselves scrolling through Twitter or Instagram to research where celebrities are or what event they may attend.

However, social media platforms are not just used by fans to keep up with celebrities and vice versa, social media platforms are seeing used by smaller celebrities and businesses to promote their talent or upcoming projects. Smaller social media celebrities are usually referred to as “micro-celebrities”.

Micro-celebrities construct an image to be consumed by peer users on social media, thus attracting them as a fan base and followers. Social media platforms are coded environments where the popularity measure incites ordinary users to conduct self-expression and self-representation practices.  

To understand the characteristics of social media celebrities, we should attend to compare “Traditional Celebrities” and “Social Media Celebrities”, traditional celebrities tend to establish a sense of authenticity through the interactive representation of their intimate and private life, they adopt affiliative techniques to show equality and commonality with fans.

The complete opposite can be seen on social media celebrities because authenticity becomes a genre of content instead of an effect, micro-celebrities tend to show more about their life and what they do to attract more fans and followers.

Lastly, traditional celebrities keep a distance from their audience. What is new for social media celebrities is the ability to maintain engagement with audiences continuously.

These differences are given as an idea and explanations that there is a different type of celebrities out there and the power of social media, by creating content and being active on all platforms, people who dream to become singers or actors become reality without auditioning or traveling to Hollywood.

The future of Celebrity and Fandom culture

I asked Neil Mockford and Ruth Sims, the two experts where they think the future of celebrity and fandom culture will go moving forward.