Celebrity 'Advice' Experts

It is no secret that we live in a celebrity-obsessed culture. Being a fan of someone's work no longer means playing their songs repeatedly, hanging their posters or magazine pictures on your bedroom wall, and if you're lucky, going to their concerts. Times have changed. As a result, being a fan of someone today also means—whether they're an actor or not--going to see their movies, wearing their clothes and scents, drinking their beverages and even buying their self-help books.

 For example, many of us were first introduced to Tyrese in the 1990s as the man who serenaded bus passengers in an infamously soulful Coca-Cola commercial. Of course, even more of us loved him as Jody in the movie Baby Boy and we were proud of his continued cinematic success. However, he ventured into yet another arena when he released his book How to Get Out of Your Own Way, and now some of us are wondering when he became Dr. Phil.

Everyone has a story to tell and everyone has a right to their stories. Celebrity status makes it even easier for people to share, because they tend to have an instant audience. Some people are especially eager to read words of wisdom from a famous person because they hope to gain insight on how to get to where they are in life, and many more people actually benefit from their advice. For all the pressure on celebrities to be role models, and all the celebrities who both fail to uphold and downright deny that responsibility, we can't get mad at celebrities who decide to promote self-improvement and positivity.

Yet, with respect for a person's right not to be boxed into a particular category and/or a person's sincere desire to help his or her fellow human being, the same way we wouldn't necessarily expect an architect, or even to a neurologist, to offer advice about our chest pains, an entertainer turned personal and social life coach can be equally suspect. For example, while Tyrese has been careful to shun the notion that he is any sort of expert, his Twitter feed and interviews often demonstrate otherwise.

Still, he is neither the first nor the only celebrity to market his experience to the masses. Everyone from Hill Harper to 50 Cent has gotten into the game. Steve Harvey has transformed from comedian and radio show host into a relationship expert with his two successful books Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man and Straight Talk, No Chaser. Since each of us probably knows at least one person who swears by the books, and anybody who has ever heard a "Strawberry Letter" knows that common sense isn't common, we cannot discount the usefulness or necessity of his words.

However, the same way society worries about the influence that obsession with reckless celebrities has on the population, we should worry about the people who believe unquestioningly in the every "wise" word of the enlightened entertainer, while they take those thoughtful pennies to the bank.