Imagine a quiz show. The room is full of people, who look excitedly to the front of the room. There, the fun quiz show host with his white, shiny teeth asks the questions. On the left side of him, there is a table with the lettering “VIPs”. Three famous people sit there. One of them is an actress, one a singer, one an influencer. On the right side of the host there is another table, which has no lettering on it. The three people on this table are up against the VIPs. One is a teacher, one a doctor and one a housewife. You look left and right. Where is the difference between those people ? What makes the three on the left table VIPs, and the three on the right table casual people ?

Let us look closely at the definition of VIP first. The word VIP is short for very important person. Synonyms for this word, given by the dictionary, are celebrity, famous person, big name, star, superstar, ect. But how do these people differ from the others and what makes them so important ? If we look at superstars, then it will appear to us, why those personalities are considered very important. Their pictures on social media get thousands of likes, some people spend a lot of money to meet them, treasure any pen their idol signed an autograph with and scream hysterically when they see the person on the street. All these actions let celebrities seem certainly important and pretty special.
   

When I once read a book, a character met a celebrity on the street and after they shook hands, the character said: “ I will never wash my hands ever again.” This situation could be real, since there are many teens, who spend a lot of time writing long comments under a post of their idol or editing pictures for their fanpage. They do everything possible to get recognized by their idol. Actually getting this recognition is not very realistic, because those promis usually have thousands of people commenting on their posts or tagging them on pictures every day. As a consequence, those celebrities appear unreachable and so far away to their fans that for a lot of them their idol starts to be a superhuman. Some kind of a not-earthy person, who is better than anything possible. They don’t see them as normal people you can talk to or whose actions you can question anymore. In addition to that, the actions of celebrities are oftentimes judged very differently than the ones of “normal” people. For example, if a person meets someone on the street and asks a question, a “normal” person would probably be judged very harshly for not answering, while a celebrity would be way more tolerated, even though both did the same thing. In my opinion, the view on a celebrity as something unreachable is the reason for some people being VIPs and others not. Not only it is the reason for this, but it is also the start of many problems in our world. Teens start to not question actions of their idols anymore and to just see them as something good, no matter what’s done. They usually don’t even take under consideration questioning the person, just because he or she is famous. This can be rather harmless, if the idol shows responsibility and uses his or her influence wisely, for example through encouraging their fans to vote. If the idol, on the other hand, doesn’t use this influence wisely and careful, the results can be bad and young people are might taken away the chance to build their own opinion on something. For example, if the idol doesn’t encourage their fans to go vote, but tells them to not vote for a certain party. Also, teens start setting things their idol demonstrates on social media, for example a certain body figure or a diet, as a norm without questioning if the celebrity does the right things or if the opinion of their idol actually works with their own personality. As a result, they can feel pressured to imitate things, such as certain trends that their idol follows. Sometimes, they are even willing to change their personalities in order to do so. Now it is clear to see, why celebrities, superstars and famous people are considered very important persons. They have a lot of power and influence, because they can reach out to a lot of people at once and their statements are believed and lived by without thinking about them too much. Their opinions oftentimes have a lot of impact, no matter if the celebrities intend doing so, or not. Seeing superstars as something un-earthy, not really comparable to normal persons, is probably also the reason for quiz show teams, such as described above. The VIPs against the “normal” people. Since the VIPs are seen as something not to measure with, getting to see the actual comparison between them and “normal” people is very entertaining to most viewers.This would also explain, why the VIPs are oftentimes considered more likely to win.  

Now, that it is clear why VIPs are VIPs, there is still the question if the designation “very important person” should only be reserved for people with a lot of popularity. A doctor rescuing a patient’s life, a teacher taking time to help a student out of a difficult situation or a housewife teaching children proper manners are really important things in our daily life. The people in charge of and performing those duties are necessary, because without them things would get out of control. Imagine that a patient could die, because nobody diagnoses his illness, a child not being able to read, cause there is no teacher to show how to, or children turning the house upside-down, because there is nobody setting rules. This doesn’t only apply to those persons, but to anyone, because every person contributes to a smooth operation in our daily life. It seems hard to imagine those people, like doctors, housewifes, teachers, ect., away, because they seem like a matter of course to us. As a result of that, those people are usually not as valued or appreciated for performing their jobs, because they being there and doing so seems really just natural. People should realize that in our society, things builds up onto each other. Anyone is implicated into this system somehow and if one group of people would suddenly be missing, our whole system would collapse sooner or later. It is clear to see that the “normal” group of people, so the ones performing casual jobs and not being famous, are just as important as any superstar and I would even go a step further and say that they are sometimes even more important, because a doctor, who saves a person’s life, or a teacher, who educates children, as well as policemen, judges or firemen often do more important actions than giving interviews or releasing a new single. While celebrities usually don’t know the fans, who are sitting behind the screen of their phones and look at their posts, people, who actually know the person they talk to, can make themselves available more to the person and have the ability to address the specific needs of him or her. Still, the famous persons are important, because their popularity makes it easy to send a statement out there and to use is to turn our society into something better. Overall, every person is just as important as anybody else, cause everyone is part of our system. All those people, who perform different duties, are needed, in order to make our world function. Sometimes,“normal” people, who work in a more inconspicuous way or are part of a big group of people doing the same job, can easily be taken for granted and their work is less appreciated or looked up to. This is a mistake, we should be aware of. Some schools already started doing this, by establishing days, dedicated to appreciate teachers. To come to a conclusion, I believe that designating just the famous persons and celebrities as very important persons is very frivolous and that it should be thought about a different way to refer to them. Otherwise, some people are automatically classified less important than others, just because they play a different, but still equally important role in our society. As a consequence of that, people and especially youths could start to think of superstars as something more relevant and as better than other people, like their teachers. Even though a situation like the quiz show we imagined doesn't seem as magnificent, it can affect one’s subconscious mind immensely, which is why we should be aware of such simple and superficial terms in our environment.