5 Truths About Fame Every Teen Should Know
Carlos Bustamante's 5 Truths About Hollywood As a reporter on ET Canada, Carlos Bustamante is used to life in the spotlight. He’s had a front row seat to the glam life of Hollywood and has witnessed first-hand the making of stardom. That’s why he knows all too well that fame is not as simple as it seems. Behind every success story is not only years of struggle, but a team of people to manage everything from hair, makeup and publicity to being responsible for what comes next. What else he sees? Hollywood life is not all it’s cracked up to be, which is something he thinks every star-struck teen needs to understand. We sat down with Bustamante to chat about the realities of Hollywood and fame, and the messages he wants every teen to know. By Rachel Naud Your kids are still young but if they become interested in Hollywood glam, what will you tell them? They’ll understand how unreal a lot of what they see is. I have friends that are makeup artists and publicists that work with actors. There is a community of people that make a famous person famous. They will understand that. If they become obsessed with fame or want people to know who they are, they will understand that there is work that goes into becoming a top-rated movie star. You don’t just wake up one day and have someone discover you. More often than not, it comes from years of hard work, whether you want to be an actor or a musician. Behind every success story is one about a person working for decades before a big break finally came along and 100 more people that never got their big break. The main lesson I want them to learn is that if they choose a career that might end up in fame, their main focus should be their love for their craft. Because if they don’t have that, they’ll never be happy trying to make it. How do you think Instagram and other social media feeds have influenced the desire to be famous? I think social media has made fame accessible. Anyone can pick up a phone and record themselves. The possibility becomes so much closer to home. You don’t have to live in L.A. to make it big. But they still have to understand that the YouTubers who have the highest followers or have endorsement deals work every single day,
How Instagram Led to one Tween’s Passion Project
How Instagram Led to one Tween's Passion Project My tween helped both of us to find inspiration through Instagram. It all started when Penny got an iPhone. My stepdaughter was nine at the time, which may seem young for a phone of any kind, but my husband and I had decided, back when she was eight, to start her with a BlackBerry Bold, as a way to keep in touch with her when she wasn’t with us. The BlackBerry Bold 9900 debuted in 2011; getting one in 2016 is not exactly a tween’s dream. Its only purpose is for talking. Texting is nearly impossible and forget about apps or games. So there was no real worry about her spending too much time on it. When she was at her mom’s house she could call us to say good morning and we could call her to say goodnight. She said “Thanks” with very little enthusiasm when we gave it to her for her birthday. My stepson, who is two years older, had about the same level of enthusiasm when he got a similar BlackBerry Bold when he turned eight. But she knew the drill. Don’t lose or break the retro phone, and when you’re nine you’ll get upgraded. And she did it. So a year-and-a-half later she scored my old iPhone 5S in rose gold. And with it, she had access to the world of Instagram, Snapchat and every other app out there. Within minutes she asked if she could get an Instagram account. Initially, we said no. We were already aware of our friends’ opinions about our decision to allow our kids to have phones so young, and we were conscious of the pressure it can put on other parents when their kids come home from school saying that other kids in their class have phones. Trust me, I get it. And if my stepkids lived with us full-time, we definitely wouldn’t give them phones. My son, who is four, is certainly not getting a phone when he’s seven, or eight, or nine, or even 10. But if you are divorced, and even a day goes by where you don’t see your kids, then you get it. The phone was our lifeline to Penny. But the apps? That, we weren’t sure about. And yet, neither of us wanted to ban it. I follow the theory of “everything in moderation” in both my own life and parenting and social