Choices: A Teenage Dream Or A Greater Purpose Series

Many Americans are star struck, enamored with stardom. It is like we idolize celebrities, to include animated and fictional characters. Hollywood stars are put ahead of the heroes of faith, as mentioned in the book of Hebrews. Sport celebrities are stronger figures in our mind than people of the Bible, like Samson. In the 60s we had the groupies, going public by the Rolling Stone culture. The women idolized these stars and were elevated in status by how many stars she had slept with. While we may not use the term anymore, the practice is the same. Following are various categories of “super stars.”

• Sport heroes—look at what we pay them, along with buying their brands. USA Today published an article, ESPN ranks the 100 most famous athletes, the top ten were listed. In order they are Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James, Lionel Messi, Neymar, Roger Federer, Tiger Woods, Kevin Durant, Rafael Nadal, Stephen Curry, and Phil Mickelson.

• Movie stars—does their role in society greater than someone like Mother Teresa? She didn’t perform in a staged script, she performed in real time.

I have a relative that is infatuated with Daniel O’Donnell, a popular Irish singer. She faithfully goes to his performances. She has bought at least, if not all, of his CDs and books. She had planned a trip to Ireland, to see his house and following him around. If her husband, I would feel as if my wife was having a fantasy affair.

• Animated characters—those like Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Seven, Hans, Olaf, Marshmallow, the Duke of Weselton, Oaken, all from the Walt Disney movie Frozen. You can go to the Disney blog and find biographical information for these characters. You can buy dolls, DVDs, books, and a host of other items.

• Virtual reality games are often the center of conversation with students. Research is raising concern about the negative effects of social media and video games.

The results of the study showed that generally, there was a significant difference between the social skills of students addicted to computer games and normal students. In addition, the results indicated that normal students had a higher level of social skills in comparison with students addicted to computer games. (Comparing the Social Skills of Students Addicted to Computer Games with Normal Students, NCBI, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905509/”

While attempting to help a student who had no friends, he told me, “People don’t need friends. They have Fortnite.” Really?

This celebrity worship falls under an obsessive addictive disorder, CWS—Celebrity Worship Syndrome. Another term used for this is sycophant,

A sycophant, as described by the Merriam Webster dictionary is “a person who praises powerful people in order to get their approval.” And charismatic celebrities can make sycophants from even the most grounded of us, who will throw away all self-respect and exhibit “fawning” behavior when in the presence of a famous person. The problem begins when fans over identify with celebrities. It is an obsessive addictive disorder in which a person becomes overly involved with the details of a celebrity's personal and professional life.

We may chuckle; however, this is serious. The University of Leicester’s Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behavior developed the Celebrity Attitude Scale.

Scoring suggested by Maltby, J., Day, L., McCutcheon, L.E., Houran, J. & Ashe, D. (2006). Extreme celebrity worship, fantasy proneness and dissociation: Developing the measurement and understanding of celebrity worship within a clinical personality context. Personality and Individual Differences, 40, 273-283.

Film director Martin Scorsese described how he sees the fan’s out-of-whack attachment to celebrities:

You really get to love them. They don’t know you. But you love them. But you love, I think, what you imagine they are. You put more into the person to a certain extent than they may even be giving out on the screen, because they represent a dream. You lose yourself in those people.

Finally when you do “satisfy the request of a fan,” after saying a few things—after [they] say, “I really loved your last film. I thought you were great. You really meant a lot to me.” Well, like what’s next? Ultimately what do they want? What do they want from you?

http://www.slopemedia.org/stop-idolizing-celebrities/

I call it living in La La Land, a fantasy world.

We may chuckle; however, this is serious. The University of Leicester’s Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behavior developed the Celebrity Attitude Scale.

Scoring suggested by Maltby, J., Day, L., McCutcheon, L.E., Houran, J. & Ashe, D. (2006). Extreme celebrity worship, fantasy proneness and dissociation: Developing the measurement and understanding of celebrity worship within a clinical personality context. Personality and Individual Differences, 40, 273-283.

Religious leaders are not immune—too many times we elevate clergy to a position right below God, sometimes listening to their slogans and misrepresentation of Scripture as if they get words direct from God. Joel Osteen is a perfect example, he has one house that cost $10.5 million and another valued at $2.9 million. His teaching is rooted in Pentecostalism and he teaches the prosperity gospel, name-it-claim-it theology, and relativism that, I believe, demonstrates a poor understanding of the Bible, specifically Jesus’ model of servanthood. The website, Got Question, makes this comment about him,