Staring with heart-eyes and love every time BTS comes on screen has become a habit of mine. Sprinting over barricades, toppling down chairs and crawling on all fours to catch a glimpse of Tobey Maguire on television (when streaming services were not a thing) used to be a thing in my household. I thought it was just a one-off thing that would die down once I hit a ‘mature’ age. However, as a fully-fledged adult, if anything my admiration towards BTS has grown many fold. A look around the world tells me that I am not alone in this and that everyone has a celebrity that they place on a pedestal. Some go as far as worshipping them religiously. Some even make it a maniacal obsession, crossing a very fine and thin line between adoring celebrities and venerating them. But the latter is an exception rather than a rule.
Having a celebrity that you constantly make references to or cannot stop talking about is a normal occurrence. However, some parties try to demonise it by driving home wildly inaccurate and exaggerated narratives that target a selected crowd. If you are a fan of a K-pop idol, you are immediately branded as delusional and toxic. But if you are a fan of a football player (who is on par with celebrities and bears the celebrity tag), even if you make a shrine in their name and host ceremonies bi-annually, you will be seen as ‘normal’. Fangirls crying at a Harry Styles concert? Pathetic. Fangirls bawling when watching football? That is for the love of the game. As much as this double standard is perpetuated, people often forget that the psychology behind looking up to celebrities and being fascinated by them is more or less the same, irrespective of the roots of the celebrity.
Are celebrities normal humans?
Contrary to popular belief, they are normal human beings who rose to fame. The main reason why the world has been divided into tiers is because many fans refuse to see celebrities as humans and attach celestial status to them. One that is not accomplishable and beyond our imagination. This is acceptable until it isn’t. Once we entirely discard the possibility that celebrities are also humans, we tend to glamorise or romanticise every move they make. Either we praise them endlessly for doing things that would have been considered otherwise normal or take them to task just because they committed a very common blunder or displayed a humane flaw. The latter is more dangerous than the former, especially considering how harsh netizens can be. Partially, media outlets are to blame for documenting and attaching every minuscule action they do and posting them on tabloids with clickbait titles.
Consider each instance when an unfiltered photo of a celebrity engaging in mundane activities appears on your social media feed, becoming a testament to its widespread virality and our persistent fascination. Whether it’s a celebrity taking a casual stroll with their pets, offering money to street children or hugging one of their friends at a coffee shop, these moments captivate our attention, sparking both positive and negative reactions from the public. The question arises: Why are we so fixated on celebrities and public figures undertaking seemingly ordinary activities, which, for us ordinary folks, would be unremarkable but for them, exude coolness and class?
Listing out a singular cause for this obsession is challenging, as it is a global event that is inherent to human curiosity and the ingrained desire to connect with individuals who inspire, entertain, or captivate us. As mentioned in Harper’s Bazaar India, the psychological underpinnings of this curiosity and obsession can be attributed to various factors. Dr. Mehezabin Dordi, a clinical psychologist, highlights the social comparison theory, noting that humans naturally compare themselves to others. Celebrities often embody ideals of beauty, success, and lifestyle that many people aspire to achieve, serving as a reference point that influences self-esteem and self-worth.
Additionally, this fixation on celebrities can be a means of identification, as individuals find similarities and shared experiences with famous personalities, fostering a sense of connection. This phenomenon is closely linked to parasocial interaction, characterised by one-sided relationships where individuals invest emotional energy, interest, and time in a celebrity persona who remains oblivious to their existence. The advent of the internet has facilitated continuous access, turning parasocial interactions into more interactive platforms. This enables individuals to communicate directly with celebrities, heightening the intimacy and strength of these asymmetrical relationships. Viewers often express emotions such as affection, gratitude, longing, encouragement, and loyalty toward the celebrities with whom they establish parasocial connections.
Celebrity worship
This is when the line is crossed and a parasocial relationship becomes an obsession. Celebrity worship syndrome represents a form of parasocial relationship wherein admiration for a celebrity transforms into an obsessive fascination. It has been described as an obsessive-addictive disorder. Similar to other parasocial relationships, celebrity worship syndrome involves a one-sided, nonreciprocal connection where an individual invests considerable time and energy into a relationship with a celebrity who often remains unaware of their admirer’s existence.
While parasocial interactions are common and not necessarily negative, celebrity worship syndrome goes beyond a typical parasocial relationship. It manifests as a pattern of behaviours characterised by obsession, compulsion, and addiction. As stated in PsychCentral, experts believe it exists on a continuum, and various scales, such as the Celebrity Attitudes Scale developed in 2002, aim to measure the intensity of celebrity worship and its impact on mental well-being. A considerably large portion of the general public may experience celebrity worship at a borderline pathological level.
Fans or Fanatics
A stereotype that fans have had to put up with since the advent of pop culture is that every fan is a fanatic. Period. It has been reinforced so strongly that there is no room for argument. Unfortunately, it is always the negative extreme of the spectrum that has been discussed, never the positive influence that being a fan of a celebrity can have on people.
Contrary to the common assumption that individuals with intense interests in celebrities or fictional universes are by default problematic, psychological studies of fans paint a different picture. While every fandom may have its extreme cornea, the larger part of being a fan, especially being part of a fandom, has a positive impact on people’s lives. The Guardian explains how Gayle Stever, a researcher with over three decades of experience studying the psychology of celebrity and interviewing thousands of fans, asserts that she has largely encountered “normal people carrying on normal lives” among fans. These individuals view their connection with their idols as akin to an important friendship or a special hobby. Over her career, she has encountered only a small number of fans who were unwell. A statement that we can mull over before calling out fans for crimes that they are not guilty of.
(Sandunlekha Ekanayake)