Moral Principles in the World of Celebrity Worship

A vague look at the world today, and you will NOT fail to realise that celebrity worship is rapidly increasing, especially among our youthful population. 

It is not just about the extreme feelings of adoration or attachment to a celebrity/opinion leader/public figure, but the fact that most who have this attachment look up to these people as role models and go on to emulate their behavior.

Why is this worrying?

Emulating a public figure is not necessarily wrong. Some portray rather humanistic behaviour and try to tune the world towards that. 

Humanistic approach to everything is welcomed by all, and would be useful to world citizens if emulated, however an increasing number of public figures are NOT actually doing humanistic things, but try to impose their personal views (whether wrong or right) on crime, punishment, morality, war etc in ways that are acerbic, anti-humanist, immoral (depending with religious, political and traditional values) and pure evil. 

This has a causal effect since their loyal fun may be influenced into their beliefs since in most cases, people rarely stand up against the wrongs public figures do perhaps because of their status.

Just to illustrate: 

1. A famed business woman who so happens to have bore a number of children with different men, and happens to use the wealth of their fathers to her children to acquire wealth and self growth and doesn't see how wrong it is; on top of that, she believes that being disrespectful, wearing skimpy clothes, verbally trashing and abusing those who disagree with her etc is okay and doesn't care about the consequences of such a life to the beliefs of her kids or those who consider her a role model. 

2. A celebrity musician also drew up very hateful remarks against jews, yet no effective mitigating measures were taken and he maintained most of his following as seen on social media accounts and concerts

3. Movies and the actors involved, largely from the global north, are increasingly making it a norm to popularise LGBTQIA in societies that view it as a very alien and unnatural conduct or lifestyle, and some foreign government officials go to the extent of threatening action when anti-homosexuality laws are enacted in most countries in the global south.

How to minimize the fallout

The cases above are just but a few of many. 

When you come to think of it, all parents/societies have certain expectations from their kids and it can be terribly disappointing and hurtful when a child adopts the values you never intended for them to have.

Minimizing the influence of these lifestyles and beliefs of public figures is of paramount importance and this can effectively happen through proper parenting; instruction on humanism, moral rules, practices and traditions along with enforcement of regulations at every level of the society.

Without these mitigating measures, children and vulnerable people will adopt values/principles and behaviour without proper understanding of the consequences to them, the society they live in and the world at large. 

Pretence When You Lose a Loved One

If you cannot make time for those who share a bloodline with you, care for you and love you; do not act hurt when they die or drift away. You do not deserve em.

Phone Etiquette

Before the advent of affordable mobile phones, use of telephones was reserved for individuals trained in communication skills. Individuals who would know how to handle an angry client, to receive  a phone call, how to speak on phone etc.

Today, we see a world with almost everyone having a phone.

The difference between the two eras, the latter lacks training in communication skills hence their handling of interpersonal communication via phone is just utterly ridiculous to say the least.

People need to style up and realise that, how they want to be treated on phone is the same way others would like to be treated on phone. 

Kavanaugh

You are probably wondering why I am writing about this character, considering I am Kenyan and US justice system has nothing to do with me...

...well it has.

When policy makers from countries such as the US make decisions and remarks affecting security and legal issues, most of the other democracies base their future remarks on them. The reason why this is so, is a lesson for another day.

I was compelled to follow the US senate proceeding on the then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and I have to say, the process was heart throbbing and would so wish a better systematic approach was followed, even in my country Kenya.

From what I have gathered so far, I deemed Dr. Christine Ford allegations, considering the timings and the manner they were brought into the limelight, to be ludicrous.

This was not Brett's first time to be nominated or appointed to a highly placed public office and this means Brett went through vetting a number of times. Why didn't Dr. Ford bring this up at the time?

The DEMOCRAT'S involvement in pushing Christine's claims into the limelight also puts more questions on the legitimacy and aims of Christine's claims.

Considering what has happened to Brett after his name came out in a bad way, and his rather silly responses during senate committee interviews, it is clear that he will have a had time working; he will not get the respect he deserves as a judge. Brett also displayed the kind of anger and lack of order you wouldn't expect to see a SUPREME COURT judge to have. He ain't fit to be a judge.

I ask myself one question: how did Christine benefit from all this; she was used by politicians, her name dragged into the mad and has made herself look really stupid (a psychologist supposed to guide people in understanding their crises runs to the public to deal with her own crises only to make things worse), making me wonder how she advises her patients and students.

Killing Hollywood

Hollywood has never failed to thrill the world. With all the movies and TV series, not forgetting music and other works of art coming out the place; it is technically impossible for anyone not to find his/her impeccable tastes being satisfied. According to movie makers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, this may not be the case in the near future.

The two veteran movie makers say that, the movie industry is set to implode amid various challenges it is facing. 

With humongous challenges facing Hollywood’s essence: and by challenges I mean soaring budgets, competition from cable TV, varying theatre pricing, piracy, etc. I have to agree with what the aforementioned movie makers are saying.

Piracy: Hollywood’s ‘greatest’ killer

New technologies like the Internet have brought about peer-to-peer sharing hence enhancing wide spread unfair; rather, illegal copying and downloading of copyrighted Hollywood masterpieces and frankly, the deed seems to be ‘forever’ on the increase.

In some parts of the world, a huge lot of people make a living out of this...and those selling and buying pirated work claim to have their reasons, which I’ll be looking into.

Buyers claim that legitimate Hollywood products are expensive! They also claim theatre prices are too high! Is this true? Well, I’ll try answering that by giving you the following info:

Buying a Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + Ultra Violet of the ‘Fast and Furious 6’, on Amazon, compels you to part with US$23.99. Buying a digital copy or DVD of a pirated ‘Fast and Furious 6’, a Kenyan for instance will have to part with Ksh. 50. Ksh. 50 is less than US$1!

Buying a complete ‘Vampire Diaries Season 1’ Blu-ray on Amazon will cost a buyer US$23.83. Buying a complete ‘Vampire Diaries Season 1’ DVD from a Kenyan pirated movie shop, you’ll have to part with Ksh. 100, which is just over US$1!

When it comes to theatre, pricing vary but in order to make my point, I’ll use two examples once used by Steven Spielberg – though in a different context. A theatre ticket for the movie ‘Lincoln’ cost US$7, which is about Ksh. 600. A ticket for the movie ‘Iron Man 3’ cost around US$25, that’s just over Ksh. 2000! 

Can, for instance, an average Kenyan meet the expense of the above legit products? I’ll let you be the judge.

Copyright protection

Apart from the fact that copyright enforcement, particularly in most third world countries, faces a colossal lot of challenges, foreign works that do not enjoy copyright protection, in Kenya for instance, belong to public domain, therefore making a great bunch of Hollywood movies vulnerable to unfair reproduction and commercial use.

Conclusively, in my judgement, I think the biggest killer of the Hollywood industry is piracy...and that for Hollywood to survive, consumers ought to stop illegal and/or unfair reproduction and commercial use of Hollywood products. Whatever reason may be behind their illegal reproduction and commercial use of Hollywood products, consumers ought to consider and respect efforts put by Hollywood artists in order to complete their productions, although consideration here ought to be done by all sides – consumers and producers.