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Mario Lopez Clarifies After Sharing ‘Less Intelligent’ Celebrity-Fan Image

Mario Lopez clarified that he did not agree with an image claiming celebrity-obsessed people are less intelligent. The study it referenced found an association—not causation—in a sample of 1,763 Hungarian adults.
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Mario Lopez shared an image claiming that people obsessed with celebrities are “less intelligent,” then clarified that he did not agree with it. The study behind the image’s headline found an association between celebrity-worship scores and performance on two cognitive tests—not proof that celebrity fans are less intelligent or that following celebrities causes poorer performance.

What did Mario Lopez post?

Entertainment Weekly, in a report republished by Yahoo Entertainment on September 13, 2024, reported that Lopez shared a screenshot from the aggregation site Intels on his X feed and Instagram Story on Thursday, September 12. The image paired a picture of Taylor Swift with a fan with a headline describing people obsessed with celebrities as “less intelligent.” Lopez initially shared it without text indicating whether he agreed with the claim. Read the report.

Users criticized the post, with some pointing to the apparent irony of a celebrity-news host sharing a claim about celebrity obsession. Those replies show how some viewers interpreted the post; they do not establish Lopez’s intent. Although the report placed the post amid coverage of Swift’s September 2024 presidential endorsement, it does not establish that Lopez meant to target Swift’s fans.

What did Lopez say after the criticism?

According to the report, Lopez’s original X post was later deleted. He re-shared the image with the clarification: “Hahaha cmon obviously I don’t agree with this. This is silly.”

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Did the study really find celebrity fans are less intelligent?

Not in the broad, headline-like sense. The image’s wording compresses a specific research finding into a sweeping judgment. In a 2021 paper in BMC Psychology, Lynn E. McCutcheon, Ágnes Zsila, and Zsolt Demetrovics examined whether celebrity-worship scores were associated with performance on two cognitive tests. They did not test or diagnose whether celebrity fans as a group are “less intelligent.” Read the study.

What researchers measured

The study used an online, cross-sectional survey of 1,763 Hungarian adults. Participants completed a vocabulary test, a short digit-symbol test, and the Celebrity Attitude Scale, as well as measures that included self-esteem and socioeconomic information. The sample was 66.42% male; its mean age was 37.22 years (standard deviation 11.38).

What they found—and what they did not

The authors reported that higher celebrity-worship scores were associated with lower performance on the two cognitive tests after statistical controls. They described the explanatory power as limited. Their conclusion was that an association remained after accounting for demographic and socioeconomic factors; it was not evidence that celebrity interest caused lower test performance.

Because the survey was cross-sectional, it cannot establish which came first or rule out other explanations. The result also comes from this particular sample of Hungarian adults, not a representative test of every celebrity fan. It should not be used to infer an individual person’s intelligence from their interest in a public figure.

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How to read the headline accurately

A careful summary is: a 2021 cross-sectional study found an association between higher celebrity-worship scores and lower scores on two cognitive tests in a sample of 1,763 Hungarian adults. The study did not show that celebrity obsession makes people less intelligent, nor does it support a blanket claim about fans generally.

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