With social media playing a large role in society today, fame has a whole new meaning. Having a viral video on the internet makes a person an upcoming celebrity to watch. Fame has changed a lot over the years and has had many questioning if it is being earned for the right reasons. In today’s society, fame is not earned.

An artist with one song in the top 100, a teenager that posted a funny six second video or a vlogger on Youtube are now known to be some of the biggest celebrities to young adults. What used to be measured by the amount of tickets sold for a movie, fame has turned to how many retweets a tweet can get in a certain amount of time. Internet stars like Cameron Dallas, Nash Grier and Bethany Mota have more followers on Instagram than artists like Drake, Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga.

It is more common than not to see a celebrity wanting to receive more ‘likes.’ Stars will post things to attract certain people that will like the content, despite if the poster actually likes the content on their page. Celebrities have put less effort into working hard to continue their passion, but instead striving to become more famous.

Junior Calvin Robinson said, “With the growth of the internet and technology and every person owning a cell phone and be able to access anything anywhere, you can become famous in ways that simply weren’t possible before. Twenty years ago there was no way to become famous just by posting funny videos on Vine or YouTube, that wasn’t something that was attainable. Now people can make a decent living just playing video games in their house and putting it up on YouTube and having people watch and like it; the more views the more famous.”

Not only has the way of achieving fame changed, but so has the definition. Being somewhat famous was not usual before the internet, a celebrity almost had to be very well known since it was hard for people to discover different bands, actors or artists. With it being so easy to become famous, creativity lacks vastly in our society, along with individuality. Music consists of similar beats and celebrities copy looks from others. Being unique has a benefit to those uprising in pop culture.

Robinson added, “As cultural values change and we move to a more technologically-based society, becoming famous becomes more and more dependent on that aspect, and more and more people will become famous just for posting beautiful pictures to Instagram or funny videos on YouTube. Sadly, this can also be a bad thing as our society places more and more emphasis on the superficial things such as attractiveness and money, people will become famous just for those things, like the Kardashians, and not things that should actually be considered, such as intelligence or creative ability.”

Although becoming famous seems almost effortless in a society filled with technology, there are certain ways that show celebrities continue to show hard work and determination to continue their passion. Celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay-Z and Oprah Winfrey were born into poor homes and had to grow up at an early age.  While social media can play a negative role for determining fame, there are exceptions for certain celebrities that don’t revolve around likes to fulfill their passion.

Due to our evolving technology, fame has made a new name for itself. Social media now determines who is a celebrity and how someone can get more people to like them. Fame is not earned because of how current fame is achieved.

Robinson said, “For someone to be considered famous in today’s society, they have be good at things we place value on our society, such as sports, music, fashion, or just be an idiot and also do those things.”