In this day and age, it’s easy to gain information on a celebrity. Standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, your eyes are more likely to land on a glossy cover of a celebrity or entertainment magazine instead of a real news magazine or newspaper.
We can go online and click on headlines to see what our favorite celebrities are up to on gossip websites, or we can just log on to Twitter to see their latest tweet. In a time where all this information is easily accessible, it can easily turn into an obsession. Have people’s obsession with celebrities become unhealthy?
“I have a cardboard cutout of Ian Somerhalder from The Vampire Diaries,” senior Danielle Van der Lelie said. “I don’t think that’s going too far. If you want to wake up every morning and say ‘Hey babe,’ I think that’s a perfectly okay thing to do.”
Yes, I believe that’s a perfectly okay thing to do. I myself am not afraid to admit that I have my own cardboard cutout in my room (Niall Horan of One Direction), and having cardboard cutouts, pictures on your walls, or following said celebrity on Twitter is a perfectly normal thing to do.
“I made a separate Twitter account for Justin Bieber and Scotty McCreery; I think my friends got tired of seeing all my tweets about them,” senior Tia Cerdena said.
It’s normal to want to show your love for someone you admire, or its fun to imagine dating them. That’s the whole point of being a fan in the first place, is to have fun.
At the same time though, there is a level in which being an obsessed fan can go too far. If you’re in love with a famous male celebrity and you’re willing to jump on Twitter and attack their girlfriend or send them death threats, that’s not normal. It’s okay not to like a person a celebrity dates, but if you’re willing to seriously threaten someone you don’t even know, I think it’s time you stepped back and looked at your life choices.
The same thing goes for that entire “cutforbieber” episode.
Back in January, after pictures of Justin Bieber smoking marijuana surfaced on the internet, the twitter hashtag “#cutforbieber” began to surface alongside pictures of teens with cut arms and wrists. A lot of people took this as a joke, and personally I find that sick. Self-harm is a serious issue and should not be taken lightly. You should never be in a position where you think hurting yourself over someone else’s actions is okay.
If you’re in a situation like that, you just need to take a step back, and I feel like you need to evaluate some of your choices.
— By Meredith Norman