Entertainment Icons Influence: More Negative Than Positive?

The idolized stars of today’s music and entertainment industry have quite the impact on their audiences. Icons like Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Beyoncé, just to name a few, are some favorites of the newest generation and saying their influence is always positive especially on young female fans, is debatable. The common concern is among parents because they fear that their children want to imitate everything they see their idols doing, particularly the unfavorable things that aren’t age appropriate. But undoubtedly, young audiences are these stars’ biggest supporters and because of the celebrity’s impact we would hope that they serve as more of a positive role model.

But even though the most common concern is that of the children, young adults are an even  bigger part of their fanbase, vulnerable to influence very similarly. On Saturday, Beyoncé released her newest album “Lemonade” right after the visual album premiered on HBO and it was nothing shy of Internet-breaking. The download was exclusively available on her husband’s streaming service website, Tidal, and sales broke immediately. The number of viewers, many of them adults, for the singer’s HBO premiere was countless and social media went nuts, even from her fellow industry stars. The anticipation yielded quite the talk and it became the program you just couldn’t miss this past weekend. When these artists grasp more attention than tragic deaths and an upcoming presidential election, it makes you question what people find important and how much it rules everything. It almost appears to be a brainwashing effect of the value placed on these stars, who are naturally just humans like you and I. Personally, I’m a fan of plenty of entertainment icons but in more recent years, I can’t help but stand amazed at how everything about them headlines and supersedes some of the issues in the world that truly deserve yet starve for a fraction of that attention. I believe the expectation is that they do greatness with their powerful influence. But that’s not always the case and it makes you wonder: is there influence positive or more negative?

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