On New Year’s Day, there was pretty much only one thing people couldn’t stop talking about: Mariah Carey’s awful New Year’s Eve performance. I sat in my living room, eyes glued to the TV screen as I tried to look away from the trainwreck that was Mariah Carey, awkwardly talking to the crowd as her famous hits played in the background. It was a cringe-worthy mistake of epic proportion.

Then there was the scandal of the Hollywood sign being changed into “Hollyweed.” The internet exploded with a herd of memes that contributed to the “Hollyweed” sign. So far, this new year has not had a great beginning. We see the media has a power over people’s minds. Through a personal experience, I can say that all I could talk about was the Mariah Carey incident, but in the morning I heard about an actual disaster in Turkey.

The next day, I sat in front of the television, trying to piece together what was happening to the other side of the world. I read the headline: “39 people killed in terrorist attack at night club.” It took me awhile to realize that I had a more emotional response to Mariah Carey’s failure, than to the deaths of others in another country. I looked to other news outlets to see if they were all reporting on the Istanbul attacks, but all I could seem to find what was the cause of Mariah Carey’s performance error. It puzzled me that America was so concerned about what happened to a celebrity, rather than an actual current event.

Why are events such as celebrity fails and celebrity news overshadow the news of terrorist attacks? Could it be that no one wants to hear sad new? Could it possibly be a hidden agenda to keep us away from the truth? Many that conspire against the media have these thoughts. Our news platforms are so filtered, how are we supposed to know that what we are hearing is true?

Social media booms with news that we don’t get on regular news stations. The majority of the news I get comes from Instagram or Facebook, not FOX or CNN, but some random Facebook profile. Though I find this news on social media platforms, it still is hidden beneath many layers of celebrity news. Why are we so entrapped in the lives of famous people, who have no real impact on our lives? We worship these Hollywood celebrities, but they don’t even know we exist. We keep up with the Kardashians, but we don’t keep up with the news of the world around us. We jump in Facebook fights but come out ignorant due to the information that we don’t know or truly understand.

We need to be aware of the world around us. We can’t keep living a mindset that the world around us doesn’t matter. We cannot turn a blind eye and think that these situations around the world don’t affect us. We have to educate ourselves in the difference between celebrity news versus the actual news.