Opinion — Celebrities famous for glamour and wealth as bad role models

The statement makes two claims: that today's celebrities owe their fame to glamour and money more than to accomplishment, and that this harms the young. I consider the first only partly accurate, but I largely agree with the second, because the fame most visible to teenagers is the kind with the least substance behind it.

A new category of celebrity has certainly emerged. Reality television stars and social media influencers can attract millions of followers by flaunting a lavish lifestyle of designer clothes and private jets, without ever having sung, acted or competed. Being famous for being famous was once rare; now it is a career. Nevertheless, the claim overreaches. Many of the world's most recognised people are still footballers, Olympic champions and musicians whose reputations rest on genuine talent and years of training. What has changed is less who is famous than what we are shown of them, since a photograph of a sports car spreads further than footage of a training session.

That shift in emphasis is where the damage lies. Young people have always admired the rich, but they were more likely to see the work that preceded the wealth; today they see the reward without the effort. Predictably, many teenagers come to treat appearance and possessions as the measure of a successful life, feel inadequate when their own lives look ordinary, and regard study as a slow route compared with going viral. Heavily edited images compound the problem by promoting unrealistic beauty standards. Admittedly, parents and teachers who explain how such images are produced can blunt their effect, but they are competing with content designed to be watched for hours.

In the end, it is an exaggeration to say that achievement no longer earns fame, yet glamour now receives most of the attention. Because that attention distorts what young people believe success to be, the example being set is a poor one.