The Heartbreaking Childhood of the World’s Most Famous Quintuplets
The Canadian government and North American pop culture exploited the “Dionne quints”
Since the dawn of mass media, the public has been obsessed with making celebrities out of children. Consumers enjoy finding young people to fawn over, with producers generating mass amounts of merchandise and stories to profit from their images.
Sometimes, the public’s fixation with child celebrities is fairly innocuous. The public adopts celebrity children like Shirley Temple and Lindsay Lohan, gushing over their life milestones and endearing antics like real parents would.
The public obsession with young celebrities becomes malicious when failures and struggles are sold for profit and entertainment, like when the internet gloated over nineteen-year-old Justin Bieber’s substance abuse issues and subsequent arrest. Soaring to obscene popularity at just thirteen, Bieber’s life in the spotlight undoubtedly contributed to his later mental health issues, which have often been glossed over and even mocked by the media.
Often, an even more sinister tone darkens public interest.
Girls and boys are objectified from young ages. Children wear provocative outfits meant to titillate adult predators. “Countdown to eighteen” websites are common, like the ones…
