Selena Gomez is no doubt one of the most influential celebrities of Generation Z. From being a role model for children to influencing the whole world, she has impacted Gen Z for the better. While there is a lot of controversy around her at the moment, due to a previous relationship, she has accomplished so much that deserves more attention in my opinion.
As a half-Hispanic woman, “Wizards of Waverly Place” provided a great representation of half-white half-Hispanic families on television. Seeing someone represent people like myself was really cool and I appreciate it even more now that I am older. Gomez represented her Hispanic heritage really well and helped change the way we are perceived. I am not bilingual and neither was her character Alex Russo in the show. To this day people still think it is an insane concept that my mother’s first language was Spanish and I cannot speak it fluently. Seeing someone else have a similar family dynamic to my own, where Spanish wasn’t spoken at home because it is not the official language of the U.S. and the other half of their family is white, continues to be inspirational to me and I am grateful for this family concept which Disney chose to represent.
Next, Gomez’s music career is incredible considering everything else she has accomplished. Her song lyrics are so delicately genius. It is amazing how far she has come in her singing career since being on Disney Channel. Her songs are an inspiration to so many people, especially her song “Who Says,” which changed the perspective of so many in our generation about the way we think about ourselves. This song recently made a comeback on the social media video platform TikTok where girls would use it to empower themselves as well as remind others of what the lyrics are about–which is that we aren’t perfect, but we define who we are and others cannot take that power away from us.
Selena released her documentary “My Mind & Me” at the end of last year. If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend it. It follows her mental and physical health journey over the past few years. The footage is meaningful and it shows her struggle to find her place in the world on her own. It travels through her childhood all the way up to what she is doing now. It is less about herself and more about showing the world that everyone struggles with their mental health no matter how perfect their life may seem. She provided free AppleTV+ subscriptions so that everyone who wanted to watch it was able to.
She has also become a successful business woman after creating her makeup line, Rare Beauty. This line is advertised not as products to change yourself, but rather enhance your individual beauty. I also love how she made her products easy to open for people with medical struggles such as herself. Gomez has been vocal about her experience with Lupus, an inflammatory disease which causes her to have decreased muscle strength. She has catered to a niche market in this case that ended up being larger than I imagined. I have seen so many videos of people using and loving her products because they are so easy to use and are high quality.
Selena Gomez has greatly benefited society from female empowerment to Hispanic representation. She advocates for kindness and sets a good example for children as well as adults all across the world. Even though she has had some hard times in her life recently, she is always able to turn them around for the better and create an example of herself for others which I greatly admire.