Instantly Famous
Written by Brett Brostrom, Posted on , in Section Teens & Tweens
Every teenager wants to fit in. That’s just their nature. But the new social media platforms have taken popularity and fitting in to a whole new level. High school kids are accumulating 10s of thousands of followers turning them into micro-celebrities almost instantaneously. What does this do to how these people maintain and view relationships?
Believe it or not, celebrities (superstars like Lady GaGa or George Clooney even down to your local super heroes) are regular people who live their lives in a very similar manner to our own. They get up, go to work in the morning, have families, shop at most of the same grocery stores, and just try to be happy. But we don’t often see it that way, and we treat these people much differently than we would treat our families or regular friends. What kind of impact does this have on a kid who gets this kind of attention from an early age?
History tells us not a lot of good, really. Within the last 5 years or so, child stars like Amanda Bynes, Lindsay Lohan, and even Macaulay Culkin (Home Alone) have kind of gone off the deep end. Bynes was arrested last year, Lohan has had multiple run ins with the law and rehab, and Culkin is just kind of a weird dude (he’s also had some drug issues). Pre-social media, it was pretty difficult to become famous. You had to become some kind of actor or musician to be recognized. Those days are long gone.
Predicting the Future
It’s hard to say what type of impact social media will have on the way the youth of today develop relationships. In a very real sense, these kids are experiencing attention on a completely different level than most. Shawn Megira, an “Instagram Celebrity,” shares a little bit about why he started using Instagram and why he shares with his followers on a short documentary called “Instafamous:” I started using Instagram about a year ago, and the journey of it was kind of complicated. I met my friend, and she helped me get started, helped me get a lot of followers, it took me about a month to get to 10,000 followers… it kind of felt like it grew over night. One time a friend and I were at the mall, and she tapped my shoulder to turn around and there was a line of about 50 people all trying to take a picture of me. It was crazy. I’m still the same person I’ve always been, it doesn’t really change your attitude. If it does, you need to re-evaluate your life because it’s just an app.”
How will Shawn communicate with others when he gets into adulthood? It’s hard to say, but keeping that same perspective of “it’s just an app” will go a long way. When asked what he would do if social media were to go away, he says this: “I think I would feel the same as I feel now. Just…. go on with my life.”
