Theories Associated with Celebrity Worship

       The celebrity world is developing  and being viewed through various resources of social media. This led to many people being interested in the idea of 'celebrity worship', which came about when research conducted suggested a strong correlation between celebrity worship and poor mental health (Crossman, 2016). An example of a source of social media that displays this correlation successfully and provides numerous resources to prove it, is Instagram.

       Through habitual Instagram use, a load of users have been addicted to following popular and well-known Instagram personnel. It starts off by simply pressing the "follow" button, and the other Instagram user accepting. Once following occurs, there will have a high interest level, causing them to keep track of every single image or video posted by the person they are following. This may lead to an interest in becoming like the influencer, through attempting to look like them, dress like them, communicate like them, etc. Most of the time, these influencers are celebrities.

       As previously stated, celebrity worship can be very detrimental to the individual worshipper. "Celebrity worship has been linked with body dissatisfaction, a higher frequency of voluntary cosmetic surgery (Maltby and Day, 2011) and eating disorders (Shorter et al, 2008).  The intensity of worship leads to many theories coming into recognition. One proposed theory is named the 'parasocial relationship' (Rubin and McHugh, 1987). This theory explains the factors of a one-sided relationship, as the celebrity doesn't know that the person worshipping them has developed an obsession. McCutcheon then came along and added that this could also be described by his "absorption addiction" model which proposes that an individual unsatisfied and disappointed with various aspects of their life, can cause them to be 'absorbed' into the life of the celebrity (McCutcheon, 2002). This relates back to the individual having a poor mental health by causing "Emotional Contagion" (Epstude and Mussweiler, 2009). Essentially, the Instagram user will start to mimic every aspect of the celebrity's life, which could involve losing weight, distancing from loved ones, and more damaging long-term consequences to the individual.

       Another way to justify the correlation between high exposure to the social content of others and poor mental health is the Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954). The theory suggests that Instagram users will start to compare themselves to celebrities for validation purposes. When the user starts to compare themselves to someone they wish to become based on their perceived success, it is called upward comparison*. This often contributes to the user feeling negatively about themselves, and with regular divulgence, it evolves to the extreme.

References 

Crossman, A. L. (2016). An investigation into the relationship between celebrity attitudes,
social comparison and social media use.

Epstude, K. and Mussweiler, T. (2009). What you feel is how you compare: How
comparisons influence the social induction of affect. Emotion, 9, pp. 1-14.

Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7,
pp. 117-140.

Maltby, J. and Day, L. (2011). Celebrity worship and incidence of elective cosmetic
surgery: evidence of a link among young adults. Journal of Adolescent Health, 49 (5),
pp. 483-489.

McCutcheon, L. E., Lange, R. and Houran, J. (2002). Conceptualization and
measurement of celebrity worship. British Journal of Psychology, 93, pp. 67–87.

Rubin, R., and McHugh, M. P. (1987). Development of parasocial interaction
relationships. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 31(3), pp. 279-292.

Shorter, L., Brown, S. L., Quinton, S. J. and Hinton, L. (2008). Relationships
between body-shape discrepancies with favoured celebrities and disordered
eating in young women. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38(5) pp. 1364–1377.