The Impact of Celebrities

It is widely known that celebrities have quite an impact on America’s youth. The media makes it impossible not to know who the latest reality television stars are or to have heard of the show Gossip Girl. While these facts might not be familiar to the majority of boys, numerous young teenage girls would be able to rattle off any of this information without thinking twice. These reality television stars have started to dominate the media’s attention, and due to the amount of press they receive, they are quickly becoming role models for many young girls.

The Hills is a reality television show that premiered a few years ago. It followed the lives of a few young twenty year olds who were living in Los Angeles. Their relationships, jobs, and party habits were documented and formed into episodes that aired on M.T.V weekly. This show ended in the summer of 2010, but the cast’s presence in the media has not dwindled. Two of the main stars from the show, Lauren Conrad and Lo Bosworth, both attend many award shows and frequently appear in magazines. They update their twitter accounts constantly and are followed by more than three million people combined. Along with constantly interacting with the public through twitter they both have created websites that focus only on appearance and relationships.

Lauren Conrad’s website, thebeautydepartment.com, is broken into six different sections. Hair, make-up, and tutorials focus on how to properly apply make-up and how to create the perfect hairstyles. The remaining three sections draw inspiration from random topics that Lauren believes will also enhance one’s appearance. Lauren constantly posts updates about this website on her twitter, so the two million people following her, most of which are teenage girls, receive these posts daily. To many of these girls Lauren Conrad serves as a role model of some sort, and the only topic they ever see her post is how to enhance your physical appearance. Lo Bosworth’s website, thelodown.com, is very similar, but along with appearance it discusses relationships as well. There are thousands of blogs that exclusively discuss how to improve one’s looks, but the impact that Lauren and Lo have as role models on so many girls makes their websites much more powerful.

The latest posts on Lauren Conrad’s website discuss the perfect eyelashes, how to make your lips look bigger, and how to apply eye shadow properly. While her website is called The Beauty Department therefore she needs to post about make-up, a post here and there about a charity or how to make an impact on society, or about being yourself and not needing an excess amount of makeup to look good could really impact young girls. Instead of focusing on how to improve your physical appearance she should write about how to embrace who you are naturally. One blogger who has a website fairly similar to Lauren and Lo’s was asked by Juicy Couture, a clothing line, to make three different videos that incorporated their clothes and the idea of her blog. The three videos were about, how to get ready, how to host a party, and how to spend one’s day in L.A.; each video was posted on her blog and Juicy Couture’s website. While all of these videos do incorporate both brands they unfortunately never mention anything except how to look or act like the “perfect” woman. Entertaining and shopping were some of the activities that many believed women should spend most of their time doing decades ago, but are these blogs and websites just bringing back ideas that this is what women should only be doing. Young girls are the primary readers of these websites and nowhere do any of them mention the importance of education or careers.

Feminism and Pop Culture discusses a few of the shows that have aired on television recently as well. Andi Zeisler states “More recently, other reality shows have broadened the definition of just what competitive activities are considered liberating and empowering for women…America’s Next Top Model, which is also based on the pursuit of hotness”(Zeisler 130). Zeisler brings up the point that many of these shows say they are empowering women, but they choose to do so by dressing girls in very little clothing. America’s Next Top Model is created by Tyra Banks, who is also a major role model for many young girls, and all the show does is film stick skinny girls running around in bikinis. This is not an image they should be associating with the empowerment of women. Lauren Conrad, Lo Bosworth, Tyra Banks and all other celebrities that have such a substantial position in the media need to watch the image they are providing to young girls.

Schuman, Emily. "Entertaining With Cupcakes & Cashmere - YouTube." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 26 Sept. 2011. Web. 12 Oct. 2011. .

"The Beauty Department." Photograph. Lauren Conrad. 2011. Web. 12 Oct 2011. .

Zeilser, Andi. Feminism and Pop Culture. 1st ed. . Berkeley, California : Seal Press, 2008. 24. Print.