Résumé en français : la popularité des émissions de TV réalité et les images d'une gloire facile qu'elles projettent poussent de nombreux jeunes à faire de la célébrité un objectif de vie.

Rae Bland, an ordinary 15-year-old girl from north London, is waiting on a call-back from television show Britain’s Got Talent. After performing in front of the judges, she was asked if she wanted to be a singer when she was older. She said, ‘A singer or a surgeon,’ and the production assistant said, ‘Well, you’ll earn a lot of money either way.’
Once upon a time, children wanted to be teachers, doctors and bankers. But now they just want to be famous. At least that is what a new survey suggests. A survey carried out last year found that the top three career aspirations for five-to-11 year olds in Britain were sports star, pop star and actor. Some people found this shocking, others found it normal. After all, we now live in a society which – rightly or wrongly – holds celebrity status in high regard. As a result of our obsession with celebrity, children dream of being the next big thing.
You can see our obsession on the television and on the newsstand. We read about the private lives of celebrities, we look at pictures of them snapped by paparazzi and we watch reality TV programmes. Pop stars are as likely to be invited to Downing Street as politicians are to appear on reality TV shows. Fame has become the key that opens every door. We have television programmes like ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ and ‘Pop Idol’ which create the impression that anybody can become famous. Is it really all that surprising that children have picked up on this and want it for themselves? Many children audition for these programmes. Some even win.
At Stagecoach, the performing arts school franchise, student numbers went up from 12,000 ten years ago to 36,000 today. David Sprigg, co-founder of Stagecoach, saw the biggest rise in student numbers five years ago, when talent programmes were at their most popular.
Some stars in the spotlight, such as Oprah Winfrey, Jay-Z and David Beckham, come from humble, if not difficult, backgrounds. It is through their talent for hosting talk-shows, rapping and playing football that their lives completely turned around. For children from disadvantaged backgrounds, the idea that fame might offer a way out is another factor.
But what are the consequences of this change in aspirations? After all, many people believe that celebrity culture has gone too far, that it is degrading us and setting a bad example for the younger generation. Is it now a case of fame-for-fame’s sake? Instead of excelling in their chosen career, do people instead just want to be famous for it? At Stagecoach, the teachers try to tell children that instant fame is not the goal, ‘because 99.9% of students will not suddenly appear on television,’ Sprigg says. ‘We tell them that it’s a crowded and unreliable profession.’ He says they want to emphasise ‘self-development, confidence, communication skills.’ And the children who are marched to auditions? According to the owners of the school, often the child’s parents want it more than they do.