Drew Donaldson

The worshiping of celebrities has become more and more popular in this day and age. It seems like every new pop star is a commodity not a talent and looks and the ability to sell their image is way more important than whether they can sing. They target mainly tweens/teens who create this obsession, but the obsession is stronger than a teenage crush on the popular boy, these obsessions turn in to hysterical youth screaming and crying at a mere glimpse of the star.

Celebrities personify lifestyles of wealth, glamorous travel and beautified health-consciousness and the fans of these celebrities believe that if they can have the things that their idol does than they will be one step closer to being like them. Marketers have caught on to this and are now selling anything and everything with that stars name on it. For example, Justin Bieber has his name on everything from shoes to nail polish to trading cards to headphones and more. There are even websites which provide information about what a certain star was wearing or using and where to purchase it (coolspotters.com). And people will buy these products to make their children happy, but why? Artists like Adele and John Mayer don’t have to hide behind promotions and products to become famous their talent is their selling point, but stars like The Jonas Brothers need something besides pure talent to make their image.

The sad thing is, is that people who have actual talent may try their whole life and not become famous but those that were lucky at the right time may blow up into a superstar. Another example is Rebecca Black and her viral video “Friday”. With one listen of the song you can tell they there is not much talent there, she can sing but its no more than average, but she has gained huge publicity and has over 74,000,000 views on youtube. But then you look at someone like Heather Russell, a ten year old from Toronto with amazing talent and she has a little more than 1,000,000 views when she should be the one shining. (link to her singing)            

It’s a shame that this has happened and although it is easier to fake talent by lipsyncing and autotune its seems like there is a underground movement of real music that still exisits but it is all about timing and luck. Today, many people believe that the virtual reality they see on screen is the norm. They read and see so much about celebrities, they feel these people are their friends, their lovers and are in fact reality and worth sharing and imitating. But that thought only fuels the corporations. Although Justin Bieber has been made into a brand I still remember seeing his videos for the first time and hearing him play on the streets of Stratford and thinking he had talent and there is no denying that he doesn’t, they have just let his talent fall by the wayside which is what is happening to many other real talents out there.