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What Do the Teen Idols Bring?

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What Do the Teen Idols Bring? What do the Teen Idols Bring? Innocent smile, sweet sound, soft brown hair, those traits make Canadian boy, Justin Bieber become one of the most popular teenager idols in the world. On Tuesday, March 6, this young pop star just had his 18th year old birthday, and as the MTV channel reported, he treated himself to a $10.8million house as a gift to share with his little girlfriend, Selena Gomez, another Disney teen idol. This luxury home is located in Hollywood, and it is made of glasses and steel boxes. To the ordinary young adults, most of them may achieve the success of buying mansions or luxury products after 20 years; however, it is not anything fresh to those teenage pop stars. In many tabloid reports, there are always the pictures of Selena Gomez with D&G handbag or Taylor Swift with Chanel necklace. For these young people, they are not real adults, but they are experiencing the luxury lives much earlier than other people at the same age, which may cause different social effects on teenagers and society. According to my interview, most college students do not follow any teen idols, and for most of them, Justin Bieber is the most known one and a lot of people get to know him through the Youtube website, in which he started to publish his own video and songs. “The only teenage idol that I know of at the moment is Justin Bieber, since he is all over the news.” A science student, Yochia Kuo says. He is a piano player and knows music, “I know that he is very popular amongst teenage girls, and that his voice is abnormally high for a guy.” Another science student, Stephen, tells me that “the only source I get to know him is from the Internet. I never pay extra attention on him or other teen idols. I do not like spend time reading newspaper for them.” For the news of Justin’s new house, most college students I interviewed do not really care. “It is his right to use his own money”, Katherine Xu, a MIT student says “Not a big deal. But for a teenage idol, it is not appropriate because he is still a child and he is better to have a normal school life instead of those ceremonies, concerts or parties, and I do not really think buying a luxury mansion represent the success.” And someone else thinks this is not a good thing for the teen idols themselves. “I feel that the report on Justin Bieber's new house is just another example of how popularity takes away your privacy.” Yochia says, “Yet the media reports it, and millions of people end up reading about this. Sometime I do feel sorry for those teen idols because they do not have any freedom and private life.” In the world, most of teen idols are around the age of thirteen to fifteen, and some of them are even younger. In most people’s mind, these special teenagers are kids, but they have started to work like the adults. Although the successes of teen idols are envied by teenagers or praised by parents, to college students, the group that is going to step into the society, this situation may bring different impacts to the society. In my survey, most college students are not following the teen idols, such as Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus. For this situation, Yochia tells me that “Teenage idols are marketed towards young teens, around the ages of 10-15 even though I admit that some of them are very talented and beautiful. Also, their images are manufactured by their agencies, and focus only on their looks, rather than talent.” And Katherine tells me that “A teenage idol I am very familiar with is Rebecca Black. She is famous, or rather, infamous for her debut song, Friday. I know that the majority of the populace do not enjoy this song and believe her to be a poor singer.” In this case, it represents that, to college students, their expectation on idols focus more on talents rather than their appearance or gossip, so in their opinion, the populace of teen idols is only temporary. “We are not children anymore,” Stephen says, “My friends and I all prefer to spend more time listening to some old music other than the mainstream music of teen idols.” On the other hand, although the teenage idols occupies important positions in the teenagers' lives, many people still think they may cause different effects on the growth of children. A psychological student, Hansea says, “As a young adult, although a successful idol can be a principle to motivate children to work hard, I feel that having a teenage idol to look up to isn't a good idea, since it results in lower self-esteem, and for most cases, it ends up becoming an obsession.” For young children, the age of ten to fifteen is the time period for them to form the social values. However, if they follow or pay too much attention on these teenage stars who are at the similar age but have a completely different life, they may feel less confident about their own life and talent. Also, many teenagers may try to imitate their idols. In the world, many teenage girls are dreaming to be discovered by the media industry, such as Fox or Disney Company, just like Miley Cyrus or Selena Gomez. So many girls start to focus on their appearance rather than the academic achievement. Jason is a BMOs student, he tells me that “My sister is learning piano and dancing now. She is 9 years old and she always dreams to become a pop star,” Jason looks annoyed, “I know this is not a bad thing, but we all know that she is not talented enough. And of course, my parents hope her focus on school work.” In this case, Jason thinks teenage idols are causing negative impacts on other children, because their success and abnormal lives make teenagers having “unrealistic” idea. “I do not want to say anything upset to my sister, but I want her to know that to be a pop star is not that simple.” On the other hand, since the children treat the idols as the principles, they may learn from their behaviors. However, some of the teen idols leave school very early. They may have excellent talents, but they do not have appropriate behaviors due to lack of education. As Katherine says, “I think becoming popular will hinder the quality of education these children receive, as they will not be able to meet their academic expectation on a regular basis. On top of that, these youths are exposed to, first hand, to all the dominant themes presented in today's popular culture: violence and sex. Many teenage idols are also exposed to drug consumption.” In this case, in College student’s opinions, it shows that for many teenage idols, their performing career limits their academic achievement and some of their inappropriate behaviors may cause negative impacts on the other teenagers as well. As Katherine xu says, “The teenage idol phenomenon can be problematic in the sense that it encourages youths to follow in their idol's footsteps. Sometimes this can be inspiring and positive, but often times, the influences these teen idols give are negative in light.”, “For example, the music videos they feature often send highly provocative messages, hinting that it is fine for teenagers to behave in such a way. In addition, many abusive relationships are featured; this could lead to fellow teenagers mirroring such behaviors.” As we have mentioned before, those teen idols are not mature enough and they may lead negative effects on the fellow fans, which may also cause the unstable social situations of teenage crimes.Also, as another student, Anna Weng says “Society would be affected in the sense that young teenagers would look up to these idols as being the "perfect" people, and would spend much of their time trying to becoming like them, without truly knowing about the type of people these idols really are.” Moreover, to become famous early also may bring negative impacts on the teenage stars as well. In the interview, Yochia tells me that “Actually I hope those companies, like Disney or Fox, they should think about these teenager stars because they are children too.” In his opinion, to be famous is not a good experience for those little stars neither, “I think it would only result in negative effects, as becoming popular results in a complete loss of privacy. The more popular you become, the less of a private life you would have. You would be judged for anything you do, resulting in the person being "fake" for the majority of their lives.” For teenage stars, they have to learn to face the surveillance of paparazzi or media, even their birthday party, relationship or family are always reported on the Internet or other printing press. In this case, it is difficult for these teenager idols to continue having ordinary school life, such as Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, both of them are having home schooling because they have to focus on their music career. In this case, due to the massive attention from other people, those teen idols are separated from normal social life. Also, to become famous may bring these teen idols big success in career since more and more people start to pay attention to them; however, lack of normal communication and work pressure may also bring them huge mental burden.
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