Heroes and the Cult of Celebrity

Since its inception, YouTube has become a phenomenon. In such a short amount of time, spending time on YouTube has become ingrained in our society. The amount of time that we, as society, spend on YouTube continues to increase as the days go by. As one could imagine then, YouTube has become a pop culture hotspot. Nearly everything related to pop culture -- including concepts such as myths, stereotypes, rituals, etc. -- can be found in some way on YouTube. Due to numerous people becoming celebrities via YouTube, and our society's obsession with all things involving celebrities, it should not come as a shock that it has become a part of the cult of celebrity, as celebrities and even heroes are starting to emerge.

While YouTube is starting to become a place where society can find personal heroes, it has not quite reached the point yet where it is commonplace. If anything, YouTube might be contributing to the devaluing of the word hero, as many teenagers see something cool and immediately say something to the effect of "that guy is my hero!" when all the person did was perform a neat trick in a video game.

However, one can definitely find evidence of the cult of celebrity when it comes to YouTube.  Our society is always looking for the next celebrity to gossip about, and YouTube is now providing a steady stream of self-made celebrities. As more YouTube users become celebrities, more people strive to be like them. They might have thoughts that making YouTube video is easy, and that it is easy to entertain people, so why shouldn't they start making videos on YouTube? In actuality, it is pretty difficult to become a celebrity on YouTube, due to the sheer volume of users uploading videos these days.

Regardless, this has not stopped people from trying their best to be like the celebrities they see from YouTube. When I really think about it, I would not be surprised if many of the people on YouTube that regularly post videos are trying to become a celebrity. Certainly, they could just be doing it because it is a hobby, but somewhere in the back of their mind, there has to be that thought that they will become famous for posting these videos.