Celebrity Idolization Wed, Aug 23, 2017

As most of you know, one of our favorite interview questions that we ask here is “If you could have dinner with anyone dead, alive, (or fictional, that’s a new addition) who would it be and why? You can probably guess the ones we hear most often: George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Elon Musk, Oprah etc. etc. Recently, this struck up a conversation about celebrity idolization, and why people fawn over certain celebrities or people of influence, without knowing too many actual details about them. This can be a dangerous concept, because a lot of times major character flaws or otherwise heinous acts are completely disregarded (or even worse, justified) in the eyes of the people who admire said person. It’s a crazy concept that’s summed up pretty well in this excerpt from an article on the topic:

“Richard Branson epitomizes this. His charisma is so potent it could derail a train. He amassed a fortune in the music industry (cool) and airlines (fun) and was prescient enough to name both companies ‘Virgin’ which reminds us of sex. When a photo once surfaced of Branson windsurfing with a topless model, our collective reaction was ‘What a fun dude!’

Had Mark Zuckerberg done that we would have said: ‘What a jerk! Here we are hard at work while that plutocrat cavorts with models.’ This is because we believe Mark Zuckerberg to be a dork, whereas Richard Branson is an Aryan shampoo ad come to life.”

Now, whether you love or hate any of these people, it’s important to see each of your role models for everything they are, instead of just the perception built up around them.

Bringing this around to SlideBelts relevance, let’s remember that as we grow and become more and more prominent in the market and the community, to earn every bit of the respect and reverence that we encounter, and to never solely rely on the perception that may come of us. Constant improvement people!