Writing for Academic Discussion The impact of celebrity culture on young people - revised -

While some argue celebrity culture offers predominantly positive inspiration, others contend it can have negative consequences. What do you think? (media studies)

 

 

 

☆Let’s Think

1.        Do you follow a celebrity? Why? How does it benefit you?

2.        What kind of negative consequences do you think celebrity culture have?

 

 

☆Hints for Points

Positive Effect

1.     Childhood heroes give power to live, inspiring the young to have positive views about humanity and courage to believe in themselves and challenge difficulties to achieve their goal.

2.     Good celebrities become role models for young people.

3.     Some celebrities advocate for involvement in important issues and contribute to making a difference by utilizing their platforms and name values.

4.     Celebrities help people connect. Their lifestyles, perspectives, and actions create an ethos of their times and their existence itself drives movements that will transform society into one better than before.

 

 

Negative Influence

1.        Some young women develop eating disorder or squander money on cosmetics and fashion because of the extreme standard of beauty celebrities set.

2.        By intensely following a celebrity, one can get detached from reality, absorbed in life of celebrity, which has nothing to do with one’s real life.

3.        The media, especially social media, make it easier for individuals to feel close to celebrities, and this can lead to criminal behaviors like stalking.

4.        Celebrity culture is the American culture, and it is not going well. In fact, it is destroying the country as seen in the chaos brought by the Trump administration. Celebrity culture is based on the wrong idea that only people who make money deserve great respect, which is fundamentally wrong.

 

 

☆Sample Answer for Ideas and Expressions

【Thesis】I partly agree with Candice in that heroes have power to raise our mentality to a higher level, but at the same time, I think Ethan delves into the truth. When it comes to the U.S.A, celebrity culture seems to be its Achilles tendon. While it is just a fad and has little impact on the lives of most young people, celebrity stories can intensely affect them for better or worse.

【Supporting Details】No one remembers Paris Hilton, whose appearance on TV shows was prioritized than any other American 15 years ago. Michael Moore called her a canary in the coal mine then, as she mirrored the American society. I guess the same can be said about most icons today. Young followers of their Instagram accounts will be emulating their middle-age lives 15 years from now, but the future young with below-average test scores will be following someone else as a fashion and contributing to the industry as consumers. On the other hand, the American delusion of Donald Trump as a successful businessman―An authentic, established C.E.O. wouldn’t have time to appear on the media regularly―has elected this so-called malignant narcissist its President twice, literally killing over a million of them with hate and coronavirus in his first administration and another million or more, and millions in Palestine, with a Nazi from South Africa and other tech sycophants in the second. However, it is an endemic phenomenon of the Hollywood empire of America. Something else like traditional authority grabs the heart of the mass in other cultures so far, although social media may be changing how ratings work lately; talks on election regulations on social media are being taken up recently.

【Reservation】Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s attempts to remove an article about Jackie Robinson from the Pentagon website and ban his biography from Naval Academy library are the evidence that the impact on society of this baseball legend is real. His success story has given courage and goals to people around the world, especially young minorities in America. So much so that a group of con artists like Trump administration wants to annihilate his story to control the American society under their authoritarian regime.

【Conclusion】True heroes and heroines are the beacons in our lives while fraud celebrities have little influence on most of us. (383 words)

Write your response in 10 minutes. Show each other your responses. Write down questions or suggestions to each other’s response.

 

 

                                                   DRAFT