Why do people make fake accounts of celebrities?

We decided that for our assignment, we would investigate why people make fake accounts of celebrities. In search of an answer, we decided to do a variety of things including a survey and messaging some of the fake account holders. In the following article are the results of our findings.  

 I personally have come across ads and accounts that are claiming to be the real celebs (usually being their private accounts) and some of them can be quite believable especially if they use ads that make it look even more realistic and can lead to more people falling for it. They can also encourage other people to make fake accounts thinking that they will get away with it.   

 It can also have negative effects on the celebrities and how they cope with the situation especially if the account is making them look bad and fans think it is them because people will start to make assumptions about them and that can really harm their self-esteem.  

 Although this isn't really to do with our topic, Lili Reinhart’s twitter and Snapchat recently got hacked and posted fake nude photos of her and she already suffered from social anxiety and other mental illnesses, so this has really affected her and how she interacts with fans.  

 Chris Pratt also has troubles with a fake account holder pretending to be him chatting up young woman. This was affecting his reputation, so he made an Instagram post: “Please know, I find this behavior reprehensible” and “It terrifies me to think someone could be hurt, their feelings or much worse, by this imposter/potential predator”. I think this was a great thing for him to do because they need to be pointed out and stopped.  

 In our survey results, 17% of people said that they or someone they know have made a fake account of a celeb. As well, 31% of people said that they were fine with people making them. When we asked people what their opinion was on the subject we came back with replies like “If they are not harming anyone it's okay - but really it's just annoying” and “they shouldn’t do it”. Others said things like “I don’t really have anything against those who choose to create a fake celebrity account. It could either be an account for putting down the celeb (which I wouldn’t be ok with) or an account that supports the celeb, so it can go both ways.”   

Those who make fake accounts on social media, especially Instagram, are making them because they want to be famous and other reasons such as blocking other people's accounts and hurting them emotionally, especially fans. This is a major concern and problem for those experiencing and going through it.  

Around 9000 of these fake accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are pretending to be extremely famous celebrities, including Justen Bieber, Beyoncé and Tayler Swift. They post pictures of these celebrities and others that do not actually look like them.  

I have messaged a few of these fake accounts on Instagram, about why they make fake accounts of famous celebrities. But I didn't get an answer from any of them. I guess they didn’t answer because they didn’t want to say that it is a fake account.   

In conclusion, there are a lot of fake accounts out there for us to watch out for and just to be aware of because these fake accounts have been having a big impact on people's lives. Such as sending nude pictures on social media including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other medias. People even get bullied from these fake accounts and it gets so serious that they can commit suicide, because they get rude comments on social media from people who get tricked by the fake accounts.