By Rachel Houng
There are many different reasons as to why people enter the spotlight. Some reasons may include dancing their hearts off in front of their phone with a LED ring light, while others may simply be spending money on the latest, most fashionable clothes.
With consideration to the accumulation of power social media has gained, celebrities have become expected to advocate for certain causes. There are a large number of mixed reviews developing as a result of celebrity activism.
Celebrity activism has been accepted in different ways because of the fact that many celebrities are given a platform. Netizens bash celebrities for failing to advocate for a certain cause while others question whether celebrities are providing reliable information.
If given a platform, one should be able to utilize their popularity on the internet for causes. To begin to pressure a celebrity for not advocating a certain cause may negatively impact the state of their mental health. However, it should also be considered that there is a distinction between celebrities and influencers.
Influencers can be considered as people that have accumulated their platform from social media. On the other hand, celebrities have accumulated their platform from jobs within the entertainment industry. Although an influencer can eventually become a celebrity, there is inevitably a fine line between the two.
Source by Rachel Houng
Students should be able to consider the distinction between the classification of influencer and celebrity.
Oftentimes, celebrities are praised for advocating for a certain cause. However, influencers are often bashed for their way of distributing information. Influencers are more often pressured to advocate for a certain cause and reprimanded by users of the internet when they fail to do so.
In consideration to the fact that influencers gain their rise to fame from social media, it is because of the easy way they became famous that netizens reprimand them more harshly for not discussing a certain cause.
Celebrities and influencers should have the ability to support causes they want to support, so long as they disperse reliable information.
It is an interesting question to discuss whether influencers should be pushed to support a certain cause by users of the internet. Should users of the internet be allowed to use harsh terminology in order to support a humanitarian cause? Do netizens reprimand influencers for not supporting a certain cause because they seem closer to home? Does the same extent of violence exist for A-List celebrities? Does forcing an influencer or celebrity to advocate for a certain subject control one’s individual freedoms on their own platform? At the end of the day, there are many different opinions and factors to consider because of how nuanced this issue is.
With so many factors to consider, one thing is for sure, those with some form of a platform should advocate for humanitarian causes they want to support. The question of whether they should be pressured into speaking upon a certain topic remains.