Influences

Hi, my name is Mimi and I am a celebrity magazine junkie. (This is when the group would say "Hi Mimi" and then we would all sit down making a unified circle)


That was three years ago. I was insanely addicted to all the racy-gossip-laden magazines that told about every celebrity hook-up to their even more intriguing public break-ups. I found myself genuinely interested in their relationships, what their next career step would be, what they were wearing, etc. I wanted to shop at the same places. I wanted to wear the same clothes/designers. I wanted to “look” like them, or at least the ones I admired.

I surrounded myself with tons of celebrity magazines because I had a genuine fascination for celebrities and their lifestyles. I preferred to get my “celeb fix” from US magazine. It had all the nice glossy pictures and provided me with steamy stories. I knew such trivial information as to Britney Spears’ diet from what breed type Christina Aguilera’s mutts were.

One day, after flipping through one of my magazines, I noticed that I was starting to compare myself to the celebrities seen in them. I would say “I wanted her legs, her bottom, her arm definition, her…” and the list went on. Once this transpired and I acknowledged it, I viewed all those celebrity magazines that I favored so much in a different light. They no longer just provided me with fun entertainment but rather had an impact on my self esteem and my self image. Living in a society where anyone with some sort of celebrity status equates to god-like adoration makes it easy for impressionable youth to look up to the wrong individuals for the wrong reasons. Take the incredibly surprising large fan base of Paris Hilton for example. Can someone explain to me why little girls are trying to look and act like Miss Paris who coined the obnoxious phrase "that's HOT"?

The moral of the story is not that celebrity magazines are the “devil” or that they only produce negative impacts on their audiences. The point is that magazines, just like any other form of media, have a strong hold in our society and influences us immensely. What I learned, and hopefully other girls already know, is that celebrities, the ones filling up the pages of US or People or Vogue, are not the ones to look up to. The real heroes that should be admired are the strong, intelligent, “stand up for what they believe in” folks who make an impact in our society in a positive manner. They are the ones to follow and mimic, not people who are just on the TV.

(Side note: There are exceptions, such as those celebrities like Oprah and Angelina Jolie who dedicate themselves in partaking in philanthropic acts and sees a bigger and better picture for the world.)