How We Ruined Children For Our Entertainment

There used to be a time when we admired movies, music, and any sort of entertainment without getting caught up with the person behind it. I grew up in the early 2000s when celebrity scandals really started taking over. We started getting invested in the personal lives of celebrities. Someone who's famous was now obligated to take pictures with anyone who would ask and their privacy would become nonexistent. The demand for personal information on our favorite celebrities became high, that we now had paparazzi pictures so we could know what they were up to at any moment. We wanted to know everything about them and insert ourselves with our opinions because we wanted to convince ourselves that we knew them. Now that's heavy for an adult let alone a child. For some reason when someone was famous we didn't see them as a human but more as a character. Leaving mean comments without realizing that we were talking about a human being we know nothing about except what information was given to us. 

I remember growing up in the early 2000s when Britney Spears had famously started "falling off the deep end." There were tabloids about her everywhere! You couldn't turn on the tv without someone mentioning her name. It seemed the world was going to end because she was no longer innocent and pure. Britney had been front and center for everyone to see and critique from the age of eleven. People were invading her privacy leaving her hopeless. After shaving her head she became a laughing stock, everyone had something to say about it. People wanted to see her fail. The sad thing is celebrities are seen as invincible and put on pedestals to be perfect without making mistakes. The days of separating someone from their work were gone, we used to get entertainment from music and movies and now we were getting entertainment from someone's personal struggles. The public had become so involved and almost entitled to Britney's life, she wasn't living for herself anymore, she was living for us. 

A lot of child stars were forced into entertainment by their parents and without any care would leave them to be taken advantage of. Child actress Bella Thorne was pushed into acting to provide for her family by becoming the main source of income especially after her father had passed away. Bella is one of many child stars who had to perform to provide. As someone the same age as Bella, I couldn't imagine the stress of being the breadwinner for my family. Former actress Jenette Mccurdy has stated numerous times that the only reason she was an actress was that she needed to provide for her family. Jenette has also been open on her podcast Empty Inside about her struggles with an eating disorder from being in the industry. Even former Disney star Demi Lovato expressed how much she was overworked, even working during her lunch breaks. Demi also battled an eating disorder which she openly expressed in interviews. Many parents failed their children by pushing them to be in the industry which sadly would result in trauma.

Another child star that was let down was Lindsay Lohan. She was everywhere during my childhood. She starred in roles such as The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday, Herbie Fully: Loaded, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, and of course everyone's favorite Mean Girls. I remember hearing awful things about her, people said she was a horrible person and that she deserved what she was getting. Are these child stars just bad people? Or are they shaped by their environment? Something that we don't question enough. Is this child overworked? Who's taking care of them? Are they saving their money at least? As a kid, I just believed it without questioning why she was considered a horrible person. Just believing she was. Until I got older and finally started to understand that she was probably neglected, overworked, and had the public's eyes on her all the time. Honestly, how do we expect a child to grow up when they were failed by their parents, had no privacy, and had unlimited access to money? Who's there to protect them? 

Justin Bieber hit the scene in 2009 as an overnight sensation. He was loved by millions of girls (including me) and with that love came to an insane amount of hate. Justin received criticism for his voice which was deemed too feminine, it almost became trendy to hate him. Only a teenager he was skyrocketed into fame; he has definitely had his ugly moments, but haven't we all? A public figure like Justin Bieber had become a target that was easy to hate, the butt of the joke. He was named one of the most hated celebrities during the 2010s even before his bad boy phase. It was easy to write a hate comment because we would never see him in person. Justin Bieber wasn't seen as human in the media he was put on a pedestal as most celebrities were. Justin struggled with mental health resulting from his childhood. Unhappy, he even admitted to "feeling really suicidal" and admitted to the comments bothering him deeming them hurtful. Justin was only a kid which many people seemed to forget.

There are so many child stars that didn't have the choice but to be pressured into a lifestyle where they were taken advantage of. I could name them all starting from Shirley Temple, to Mary Kate and Ashley all the way up to the new wave of child stars that are taking over on social media. There are too many to count. The formula of neglectful parents, greedy people in the industry, scrutiny, and an insatiable amount of attention would lead to child stars becoming broken adults. Over the last decade alone entertainment has taken over our lives, all we talk about is celebrities. It has become normal to stalk a celebrity for a photo, leave them hateful comments, and they're supposed to be okay with it because it comes with the job. It has become normal to make children appear older which makes it easier for the public to see them as an adult and they get taken advantage of. Forgetting that they are human too and that children in entertainment are just that, children.