Friday , March 29 2024

CELEBRITIES AND THE YOUTH

In recent time, there have been lot of highly admired personalities termed as Celebrities. It is seen how these celebrities have greater influence on the youth currently.
These celebrities are usually from the athletics, movie industries and from the musical arena. In our world of entertainment, there has been the emergence of celebrities across the length and breadth of the country and Ghana as a whole.

The youth of today have developed profound interest in entertainment and have led most of them into poor performance in schools .However, the entertainment sector plays a very vital role in the lifestyles of the youth. They can either influence the public especially the youth both positively and negatively.

With the changes in culture lately, there have been quite a number of different lifestyles to suits modern trends, including attires, hairstyles, shoes and a lot more. It is not surprising that western lifestyles have been highly upheld recently in the country and in Africa as a whole. It is sad to note that, the interesting culture that Ghana once possessed has been laid down and adopted a foreign culture.

This is seen always especially in the kind of attitudes and behaviours which is exhibited by some of the youth and celebrities. The youth imitate these celebrities in their lifestyles especially their mode of dressing, hairstyles and many more. To aid this, most of the youth choose some of these celebrities as their role models.

I witnessed how one lady between the ages of 19-24 during the auditions of one of the talent shows sang one of Beyoncé’s songs and it sounded just exactly like Beyoncé. This compelled one of the judges to ask whether she enjoys listening to Beyoncé’s music which she replied by saying, Beyoncé is her role model. A model according to Oxford Advance Learners Dictionary is defined as someone you admire and try to imitate. In this view, any celebrity being chosen as a role model will someway somehow be imitated by that person.

In addition, the youth tend to follow up with most of these celebrity shows and programme such as Vodafone Ghana Movie Awards [VGMA], Ghana Movie Awards and many more. They however take into consideration their speeches, outfits, behaviour and the like.
It is woebegone when someone captured the outfit of a lady with most of her body parts which in actual sense supposed to be covered exposed. One could clearly see that the lady did copy and tried to be like someone in terms of fashion.

This was totally uncalled for and unethical. What do we see now? Most of the youth especially those in the tertiary levels are seen with wired hairstyles as well as dresses which expose certain parts of their bodies as a result of them being exposed to certain behaviours exhibited by some of the these celebrities. The youth now engage in bad habits such as smoking, alcoholism and this is as a result of imitating celebrities.

On the other hand, celebrities who promote ethical behaviour and make responsible personal decisions can have a positive effect on teenagers. Some also promote social justice and participate in relief efforts when disasters strike. As long as a teenager does not develop an unhealthy obsession with a celebrity or experience delusions of grandeur expecting to live like a celebrity, an interest in movie stars or famous athletes could have some disadvantages. This helps the teenager in his or her lifestyles as he or she grows up helping the future generations as well. Some also, use their personalities in educating the youth in some of the societal problems and many more.

Many a time, teenage girls are influenced by models, actresses, and singers, whereas teenage boys are also influenced by actors, singers, rappers, athletes and so on. Unfortunately, the lifestyles of some of these celebrities are totally not the best. Some athletes take in drugs and rock stars promote drinking, drugs and promiscuity.

All these desired vocabularies of some celebrities are not a positive influence. In the area of clothing, thanks to the help of magazines with all sorts of fashionable styles which are mostly not decent but then teenagers tend to follow.
Celebrities must live lives that are worthy of emulation.

They must know that the youth are looking up to them as they are greatly admired. The future generations will look up to these current generations so then if the current generations are living promiscuous lives, lives that will bring absolutely nothing to the country and the world then what will be the fate our future generations. This remains a mystery and the suspense lives on.

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