Brett Favre...Halo Effect Gone Wrong

I agree with you that this is a case of naive realism as well as the halo effect. That is why when such "beautiful" talented people do bad things we are shocked, this is because we don't actually see the world just as it is. Also, it is interesting to look at the halo effect in the terms of how when Farve was playing well the media made him out to be great but when he started messing up they started showing bad aspects of him instead of uping his appearance.

I agree that the Halo Effect is a prime example of the boom in popularity, along with the gradual decline, of Brett Favre. Fans of the sport may appreciate him as a talented football player, but above else the majority of the population bases their opinion on his physical attributes and personality demeanor on and off the playing field. A similar story, on a smaller scale, of the New England Patriots tight end Ron Gronkowski can be related to the Halo Effect. Throughout the season he was unstoppable; a superstar at his position. his popularity exploded. However, although suffering an ankle injury a few weeks prior to the game, Ron was able to play with limited abilities. The day after his team's Super Bowl XLVI loss to the New York Giants, a video was released of him dancing on his bad ankle. Gronk seemed to be just fine. Will this act potentially doom his Halo Effect on society?

I find the concept of the Halo Effect really interesting. It is one of those things in society that we don't even notice until it is pointed out to us. It seems so easy for the media to persuade us of something and control our thoughts. Unless we take everything we are told with a grain of salt and look at the reality of the situation we can easily fall for this Halo Effect. This also goes for the reverse Halo Effect when the media takes one negative aspect of a celebrity and makes everything associated with them seem negative. What the media often forgets is that they are humans and make mistakes regardless how famous they are.

I found this interesting because it relates to someone else's blog post about photoshop. We perceive celebrities and models to be perfect because our first impression of them is seen in a magazine or advertisement which is most likely photoshopped. The blog about Favre made me wonder why he was receiving this attention. Yes, he is a good athlete, and he's good looking, but someone had to generate this buzz about him. My opinion, with Favre and all celebrities: it's all about money. Mostly everything we see about Jennifer Aniston for example in People magazine is planted by a public relations firm hired to put her or Favre in the spotlight to make some money.
The evidence you provided about Favre here is a perfect example. He is perceived as perfect because that is the way the media has portrayed him to us, but really he has flaws and some pretty serious ones. Whether it be to sell more Greenbay jerseys, more NFL tickets, or to attract a female audience to the NFL (and it worked if it was), it's all done for the dime.

It's so interesting how we associate people's good looks and fame with other good qualities like that he's a perfect person and never does anything wrong. I recall reading in our text that people are more likely to get jobs if they're good looking. For some reason, as humans we believe that if you're good looking, you're bound to do a better job in the work place. Taking this post to a different context, the halo effect leads to terrible judgment of a future employee. Employers need to focus on the real traits that are important in an employee such as their work ethic or qualifications for the job.

Though, I do see how one could argue that the Halo effect applies to Brett Favre, I disagree. I think Favre can be considered the opposite of the Halo effect. He's attractive, good at football, yet still has bad qualities like all people. It's not like people just ignored the mistakes he made, granted because of his "beauty" he was able to make up for them quicker any easier than most people, but he still had problems in his life.

Just because a person is seen as being "good looking" and well respected by the public eye does not necessarily mean they are under the halo effect. Sure, it seemed like Bret Favre had it all, but really as mart272 said above, he still has problems in his life. People liked Favre because of the pride he was bringing to the team, and sure, that can lead to a sort of halo effect but I think it was more admiration than halo.