Celebrity pregnancy

In 1977, Illich et al identified the rise of so-called professionals, such as lifestyle counsellors and food fad experts, who fed on consumers' ‘splintered needs and fractured self-confidence’ (Illich et al, 2000: 24). This fractured self-confidence, in my view, has contributed to a coarsening of popular culture, exemplified by the rise of the celebrity and inflated by social media.

The extent to which this phenomenon can have unexpected effects was illustrated by Grol-Prokopczyk (2018), who drew attention to the growing body of research linking popular culture to fertility-related trends, citing, for example, that Brazilian women who watched television soap operas featuring small families had lower fertility compared to women without access to these programmes.

Clive James (2005: 354), exploring the relationship between hip-hop lyrics and gun crime, wrote that ‘anyone who is unworried about the effect of popular culture when it turns sour is living in a dream’. Furthermore, there are aspects of celebrity whose curdling effects can also promote a souring process.