Many in the public eye leverage their celebrity to do good by donating time and money, and raising awareness, to worthwhile causes. Others do harm by flaunting their celebrity and serving as poor role models.

TO whom or to what? Celebrities have lots of power to do good (or, for that matter, to do bad). How they choose to use their fame is up to them. (Compare Bono, for example, against Justin Bieber)

Your question implies that – if they were doing harm – we might be able to do something about it. That’s just not realistic. Any any society, there will always be celebrities—government, sport, entertainment, and so on. They’re a fact of life, good, or bad.

I don’t think they cause much of anything. The public is the responsible for raising up celebrities and they decide whether to listen to them, emulate them, etc. If people can’t think for themseves then we should be questioning society at large and where our culture is heading.

I agree with @JLeslie. Celebrities are just normal human beings after all. The only thing that set them apart is that they get more attention than normal people. If a normal person do something wrong, nobody really notices, but when a celebrity do, every eye turn to them and it becomes a “scandal”. It’s mainly the public that make them good or bad.

Of course they are normal humans. I would say firmly they do more good than harm. While there are those who cause trouble, find trouble, pack trouble in an old kit bag and bring it with them, they are not the whole pie. So many celebrities give of themselves until they turn inside out. They bring humor, and music, and the breathless challenge of sports to our lives. They are dramatic, romantic, and philosophical. They share themselves , sometimes, down to the last drop. I think that outweighs the wrecking ball team of Cyrus and Bieber.

My personal feeling is that the only job of a celebrity is to entertain. I’m not interested in their personal life, political affiliation or how they spend their money. A good actor, actress, dancer or singer should help their audience to escape for a few hours. Their job should not be to foster an agenda on their fan base.

Then there are those celebrities who translate their fame into political careers. Celebrities run the gamut, just like the rest of us. There’s little point in faulting them when the actual problem is the brain dead easily dazzled audience which worships them.

Except for a very few people, celebrity is brief and has an expiration date. For every Robert Redford or Paul Newman, there are countless people who starred in some movie or long-cancelled TV show, were tabloid darlings for a while, and disappeared quickly. Personally, I couldn’t care less about celebrities’ private lives. No, I don’t read any fan-rags, not even when I’m at the beauty parlor.

Nearly all celebrities should be banned from speaking regarding politics.

@SecondHandStoke – how are you going to accomplish that?

All of these “should be banned” types of comments seem to ignore that fact that the first amendment guarantees freedom of speech – no matter how asinine it is.

I am of course joking.

Though I do wish celebrities would stop embarrassing themselves and manipulating the feeble minded by attempting to speak about policy.

My honest opinion about famous people is that they are just the same as everyone else. I dislike to concept of “celebrity” and idolizing people who are attractive or have some talent or another or happen to be born to a wealthy family. I dislike the cultural obsession with superficial appearances, youth, and material goods. I conscientiously select which media to give my attention to, even clicking on a YouTube video that someone shares feeds into the popularity contest.

Good and bad lies in everything. There’s no point highlighting celebrities only because they are famous or can be seen everywhere.
Celebrities also have a private life, and a certain amount want to keep it that way. I cannot make a first hand opinion that celebrities downright make a positive impact on the society. Because their are thousands of different types of celebrities doing what they feel is accurate. It truely depends on their feild of work. It all depends on what a particular celebrity does.
Celebrities are not the problem here, a lot of times people’s vague description about a specific celebrity solely based on their exterior makes it harder to understand what they are capable of.

I have a real dislike for celebrities. Many of whom I use to like until they opened their big mouths and I discovered what creeps they were. To quote a book they should just “Shut up and Sing”. AN ACTUAL TITLE OF A BOOK.

I’m sure to the people who are employed in industries that profit from celebrities, the celebs are great.

It’s hard to generalize and say celebrities do more harm than good. Harm how? Good how? If you’re into that, fine. Sure, they can be jerks but there are jerks everywhere, not just celebrities.