Assessing Celebrity Worship and Intense Fandom: An Addictive Disorder?

This essay examines the phenomenon of celebrity worship and intense fandom, assessing whether it qualifies as an addictive disorder. It delves into the concept of intense fandom as a subculture characterized by camaraderie and deep interest in minor details related to the object of their fandom. The essay further explores celebrity worship as the idolization of celebrities, which can sometimes lead to Celebrity Worship Syndrome (CWS), an obsessive-addictive disorder. It discusses the three dimensions of celebrity worship: entertainment-social, borderline pathological, and intense-personal. The essay also highlights the correlation between poor mental health and pathological aspects of CWS, such as depression, anxiety, and poor body image. It touches on the role of social media and general media coverage in fostering para-social relationships, where fans develop one-sided relationships with celebrities. The essay concludes that intense fandom or celebrity worship can indeed be an addictive disorder, supported by research indicating a link between celebrity worship and psychological difficulties.

Running head: FANDOM AND CELEBRITY
Fandom and Celebrity
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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The concept of celebrity worship is much more than just being a normal or casual fan
(Stever 2011, p. 1363). These topics of celebrity worship and intense fandom is long been
one among the media interests but it is now one of the most focused topics of psychological
investigation as well. With the same, it has also been researched into by the socialist and
psychologists as well. Everyone is well aware of the issue that most of the celebrities have
with ‘addiction’, but what about the average number of people who become addicted and
obsessed with a famous person or individual or say, a celebrity? This essay is going to
elaborate on assessing whether celebrity worship and intense fandom really an addictive
disorder or not.
The term “Intense fandom” refers to a subculture that is composed of several fans that
are characterised by the sense or feeling of camaraderie and sympathy with the other people
who share common interests. The fans are basically interested in minor details of the very
object or objects of their fandom and they spend high amount of their energy and time, being
involved with that interest (Lasch 2018, p.82). More often they do so as a part of their social
network with a specific practice. Furthermore, the concept of “celebrity worship” refers to the
process of idolisation of a particular celebrity or certain groups of celebrities and hence, goes
hand in hand with fandom (Boyd and Elliott 2018). Notwithstanding this fact, most of the
times, this fascination with their celebrities, heroes or idols are harmless, but, there are times,
when this fascination can develop into an obsessive disorder that is coined as CWS- Celebrity
Worship Syndrome.
According to Jia, Hung and Zhang (2018), CWS is an obsessive-addictive disorder
where the individuals become highly interested and involved along with the details of their
favourite celebrities’ personal life. Anyone who is “in the public eye” could be the object of
obsession for any person. They could be authors, journalists, politicians or any one. However,
the criminal prosecutions and research have suggested that they are more possibly to be

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someone from the world of media and television, pop music or films. With the same, there
are several researches that have claimed that CWS do prevails. Also, according to Zsila,
MuCutcheon and Demetrovics (2018) there are a total of three independent dimensions of the
concept of celebrity worship and they are- a) entertainment-social, b) borderline pathological
and c) intense-personal. It is to note that entertainment-social is related to the attitudes where
the people are attracted a particular celebrity as of their perceived ability or potential of
entertaining and becoming a social focus of conversation with the likeminded people. On the
other hand, the borderline pathological is related to the people who showcase uncontrollable
fantasies and uncontrollable in relation to the celebrity. Lastly, the dimension of intense-
personal is related to the people who have compulsive and intense feelings regarding a
particular celebrity (Narula and Varma 2018, p. 302).
In this world of social media, vast consumerism and ‘Kardashians’, people are much
more obsessed with the celebrities than ever before. Furthermore, according to many
researches, there is a correlation in between the poor mental health and pathological aspects
of CWS among the adults like more depression, increased illness, high anxiety, poorer body
image and high stress. Also, it has been seen that, among the young female teenagers, there is
a relationship in between body image and intense-personal celebrity. With the same, most of
the celebrity-obsessed people often undergo high degrees of fantasy-proneness and
dissociation. Sulianti et al. (2018) have suggested that about one percent of his respondents
have some obsessional tendencies towards their favourite celebrities. As per him,
worshipping the celebrities for their personal reasons have been found to be more anxious,
depressed, solitary, obsessive, anti-social, troublesome and impulsive. The number of people
who possess celebrity obsession has been increased over the last twenty years and this mostly
because of the rise of celebrities who use social media and also due to the increase in the
general media coverage in regards to the celebrity and their lives. Such sort of social media

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and general media could give rise to para-social relationships to a great extent. In regard to
the celebrities, the para-social relationship are regarded to be one-sided relationships where
just the fans express their love, feelings, money, emotions and time on the celebrities but the
celebrity is completely unaware about the existence of the fan.
There is a mental health diagnosis that is called to be CSW. The existence of this
syndrome itself speaks a lot about the fact that it is actually a psychological disorder. There is
a scale that is developed for rating to what extent a fan is obsessed with the celebrity. It is
also to note that celebrity addiction often begins just like the other admirations that most of
the human beings have for someone very famous. Notwithstanding this fact, once it develops
from this harmless pastime, the people start to be obsessed (Boyd and Elliott 2018, p. 12).
They spend lot of time in learning and getting detailed knowledge about their favourite
celebrity and watching them or attempting to have some sort of conversation or interaction
with them. It can be done by means of following the celebrity on the social media sites as
well or by sending letters or emails or even attending the various events where the celebrity is
called as guest.
There have been a wide range of reasons that are attached to why celebrity worship
takes place within an individual. Basically, mass media has been blamed because the
celebrity stories are bombarded continuously by the media by means of magazines, television
and internet. With the same, it is also to mention in this context that in most of the studies
DNA has been cited to be one of the significant reasons behind the psychological disorder of
Celebrity Worship. According to Sulianti et al. (2018), the need to seek out for an idol and
follow him is basically programmed into the DNA of human beings. As per him, “What’s in
our DNA, as a social animal, is the interest in looking at alpha males and females; the ones
who are important in the pack”. Human beings are sociologically pre-programmed for
following the leader. According to the very recent statistics, about one-third of the total

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population of the world is afflicted with some or the other form of celebrity worship and this
number is significantly increasing. The number of people who possess celebrity obsession
has been increased over the last twenty years and this mostly because of the rise of celebrities
who use social media and also due to the increase in the general media coverage in regards to
the celebrity and their lives. The fans who are obsessed or addicted with their idol would
spend maximum amount of their time, money and energy on following their celebrity via
newspapers, magazines, on-line or with the help of various social media sites such as
Facebook, Instagram or Twitter in order to find out what they are doing and having a sense of
knowing their celebrity closely and following their lives. Also, there are fans who spend a lot
of income on their fan memorabilia, downloads, promotional material and CDs. Also, the
entertainment media also have a significant contribution in the creation of the “monster”
called the celebrity super fan. The entire spin machine of Hollywood works together for
creating the literally impossible for us to live up to.
Narula and Varma (2018) in this context have also claimed that “people who worship
celebrity at low level tend to be happier, more outgoing and more amiable as it is a form of
social bonding, stress reduction, escapism and entertainment”. With the same, the strong
companionship and the social mutual support could be found belonging to a fandom group.
Moreover, such an idolisation of celebrities and the desire for being like them as role models
could have both negative and positive implications. Because of the media exposure, the life
of celebrity is entirely on display, showing the positive and the negative behaviours like
drinking, taking drugs and smoking. One of the surveys conducted by Hoirisch-Clapauch
(2018) has shown that most of the teenager females confessed about changing their own
opinions due to the influence of a celebrity. Also, there are some who even admitted to
smoking after seeking women smoke in the movies. The same can be true for the alcohol and
drug users. Notwithstanding this fact, most of the times, this fascination with their celebrities,

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heroes or idols are harmless, but, there are times, when this fascination can develop into an
obsessive disorder that is coined as CWS- Celebrity Worship Syndrome. The fans who are
obsessed or addicted with their idol would spend maximum amount of their time, money and
energy on following their celebrity. The number of people who possess celebrity obsession
has been increased over the last twenty years and this mostly because of the rise of celebrities
who use social media and also due to the increase in the general media coverage in regards to
the celebrity and their lives. This survey has also revealed that most of the adolescent wants
to look or going as far as plastic surgery and act like the famous people. With the same, about
60% of the teenagers said that they wanted to pierce their body parts and get tattooed due to
the fact that their favourite celebrity has the same (Park 2016). Also, about 77% of people
believe that when a star loses weight, they too, would do the same and loss their weight. Most
of the celebrity-obsessed people often undergo high degrees of fantasy-proneness and
dissociation. Worshipping the celebrities for their personal reasons have been found to be
more anxious, depressed, solitary, obsessive, anti-social, troublesome and impulsive.
However, it should be noted that not everyone who develops this syndrome or CSW
has mental health issues, but there has been an increasing number of researches that have
suggested that along with the CWS syndrome and the behaviours associated with CWS, there
is a high degree of stress, depression and anxiety. According to Hoirisch-Clapauch (2018)
when this obsession develops into true addiction, the individuals would start to believe the
concept that there exists a real relationship with the celebrity. It could further lead to a
detailed fantasies which could potentially escalate into more delusional thoughts and
dangerous behaviours. Moreover, in the field of celebrity worship, the Celebrity Attitude
Scale appears to be the highly researched scale. This scale is developed for assessing the
celebrity adulation (McCutcheon et al. 2016, p. 163). Most of the research findings indicate
that there are higher scores on the Celebrity Attitudes Scale. This clearly indicates a much

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greater preoccupation with a celebrity are liked with wide number of potential psychological
and emotional difficulties. All these difficulties might include great concerns regarding the
body image (especially among the youngsters) and much greater proneness towards
sensation-seeking, identity diffusion, poor interpersonal boundaries and cosmetic surgery.
With the same, the additional interpersonal and psychological difficulties might include the
dissociation, criminal tendencies, narcissistic personality features, stalking behaviour,
depression, general social dysfunction and addictive tendencies. And all these difficulties are
generally found in the high levels of celebrity worship.
Hence, from the above analysis it is to conclude that intense fandom or celebrity
worship has recently been researched a lot and it has been found that it is really an addictive
disorder. There is a correlation in between the poor mental health and pathological aspects of
CWS among the adults like more depression, increased illness, high anxiety, poorer body
image and high stress. Also, most of the celebrity-obsessed people often undergo high
degrees of fantasy-proneness and dissociation. Worshipping the celebrities for their personal
reasons have been found to be more anxious, depressed, solitary, obsessive, anti-social,
troublesome and impulsive. Moreover, DNA has been cited to be one of the significant
reasons behind the psychological disorder of Celebrity Worship as well and it is indeed a
psychological disorder that compels human beings to prioritise the celebrities more than
themselves.

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References:
Boyd, R. and Elliott, A., 2018. Celebrity and contemporary culture: A critical analysis of
some theoretical accounts. In Routledge Handbook of Celebrity Studies (pp. 3-25).
Hoirisch-Clapauch, S., 2018, May. Anxiety-Related Bleeding and Thrombosis. In Seminars
in thrombosis and hemostasis. Thieme Medical Publishers.
Jia, X., Hung, K. and Zhang, K., 2018. Diversity of Fans on Social Media: The Case of
Entertainment Celebrity in China. In Exploring the Rise of Fandom in Contemporary
Consumer Culture (pp. 163-184). IGI Global.
Lasch, C., 2018. The culture of narcissism: American life in an age of diminishing
expectations. WW Norton & Company.
McCutcheon, L., Aruguete, M.S., Jenkins, W., McCarley, N. and Yockey, R., 2016. An
investigation of demographic correlates of the Celebrity Attitude Scale. Interpersona: An
International Journal on Personal Relationships, 10(2), pp.161-170.
Narula, N. and Varma, P., 2018. The influence of personality (extraversion and neuroticism)
on body image, mediated by celebrity worship, among Thai female adolescents in
Bangkok. Scholar: Human Sciences, 9(2), p.302.
Park, J., 2016. Signs of social change on the bodies of youth: tattoos in Korea. Visual
Communication, 15(1), pp.71-92.

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Stever, G.S., 2011. Celebrity worship: Critiquing a construct. Journal of applied social
psychology, 41(6), pp.1356-1370.
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