Celebrities are everywhere. We see them on TV, advertisements and magazines. Young people tend to flock to them in some way. I know that I’m guilty of it myself. There’s something comforting and liberating about reading about celebrities misfortunes and troubles.
Rolling Stone magazine has done something controversial yet again — Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, allegedly involved with the Boston Marathon bombing, is on the front cover, and Bostonians are outraged.
Callie Parrish/ The Daily Cougar
Even worse, according to the New York Post, Tsarnaev has a cult following of teen girls. Some took to the internet to defend Tsarnaev, whose nickname is “Jahar,” by tweeting #FreeJahar on Twitter. Others went so far as to get tattoos of Tsarnaev’s tweets.
Many people are upset because they feel that the Rolling Stone cover places Tsarnaev in a positive light, giving him celebrity status.
“They are just trying to get into the news,” said journalism professor Charles Crixell. “The actions of Rolling Stone magazine should be condemned.”
Instead of being entertained by the cover, people should try to learn from the tragedy. We should realize that the bizarre behavior that seems to earn a lot of media coverage is not normal and shouldn’t be glorified.
Charles Manson also served as a Rolling Stone cover boy in June 1970, which was similarly distasted by the public, proving that the media’s continuous coverage of bad behavior doesn’t start or end at Tsarnaev.
According to Psychology Today, celebrities who are noticed for their harmful behaviors, “end up in these predicaments as a result of self-loathing stemming from childhood trauma and abuse.”
Young people are seeing celebrity behaviors and are associating them with mainstream. If you’re an avid reader of celebrity gossip, you’ll notice fairytale-like marriages. Only to see them break up, in Kim Kardashian and Chris Humphries’s case, 72 hours later. You’ll also see stars that seem to have it all, fame and fortune and then they proceed to throw themselves into drugs and alcohol. You’ll also see celebrities suffer from eating disorders and yo-yo dieting. Seeing that on an everyday basis, you can lose grip on what’s normal and what’s not.
According to Pew Research, 40 percent of those polled say celebrity news get too much attention from the news media.
It doesn’t take rocket science to figure that the amount of celebrity-watching had increased over the years after the boom of TV’s in American homes. But with that increase also came thirst for celebrity gossip. According to proliteracynet.org, the shift came when Entertainment Tonight began offering daily entertainment news in 1981.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to know the latest scoop in the celebrity world. Just remember that what is being reported isn’t always the norm. It’s hard to imagine that sometimes because of how much negativity is broadcasted, but it isn’t impossible.
Callie Parrish is a mathematics and art senior and can be reached at opinion@thedailycougar.com.