They enter your living room at regular intervals, pixelated intruders seeking to send you scurrying out to part with your hard-earned cash. Sporting icons, pop stars and actors - seen as heroic figures by many impressionable children - have used their influence to push teeth-rotting soft drinks, artery-clogging junk food, designer clothing manufactured in sweatshops and other expensive status symbols to their wide-eyed admirers. They grab the money, swell their already bloated bank balances and to hell with the consequences.

You can kind of understand, if not forgive these actions. Greed has been a pivotal part of human nature since our species was first spat out of the primeval slime many years and upgrades ago. It's now time some of these crooked celebrity culprits crawl back.

Not content with picking up more money in a week than a life-saving nurse may earn in a couple of years, a whole host of footballers have found it fit to put their name to food and drink products that serve to damage the health of children if regularly consumed. These kids have little chance of emulating their heroes on the pitch if they're dribbling the ball all the way to a coronary. Hopefully, that's where the British Heart Foundation will step in to help them… with the backing of celebrities from the sporting world. Notice a slight bit of a moral contradiction at all?

For the unbearably infuriating part of the celebrity endorsement is when these aforementioned peddlers of ill health, and material wealth ally themselves with charitable foundations and use this same star influence to project themselves as caring, earnest individuals. Is it fit that they help damage society for their own personal gain, yet appeal to the ordinary person to dig deep into their pockets to help the needy?

It is a sad fact that our society is fascinated in vacuous celebrity culture, presumably compelling charities to attract these endorsements as a means of exposure. The well-oiled publicity machine behind the modern day celebrity dictates that increased profile and visibility is intertwined with a bigger capacity to generate revenue somewhere down the line.

Very strong rumours persist within the music industry regarding the line up of the last Band Aid single, where insiders have claimed that a management company only allowed a high profile artist to appear on the condition that a less profitable act on their roster was shovelled into the line up in a bid to boost their credibility, visibility and thus marketability… all of which should lead to more wads of cash for both celebrity and corporation.

Last year's Live 8 event in London appeared worthy of our attention, with the aim to Make Poverty History through increasing awareness and public recognition of various social injustices in the world affecting the hordes of impoverished, malnourished and uncared for. Cast aside for a moment, the reports that some of the Make Poverty Wristbands were manufactured in Chinese sweatshops. The fact that tickets were free was an appropriate demonstration of how individuals should have the same rights and equality, thus ensuring that nobody was priced out of attending.

But what is that you see surrounding the stage at Hyde Park? It's the infamous Live 8 'celebrity enclosure' of course! For both directly in front of the stage and backstage were cordoned off areas populated by Very Important People of wealth, fame and social status, indulging in free champagne, lobsters and goodie-bags provided by the corporate sponsors. The Not Very Important People were on the other side of the fence. A fence, now effectively functioning as a tool of social segregation...

So an event designed to help the impoverished serves to reinforce social elitism and the increasingly polarised rich/poor divide that exists in our society. The sheer absurdity of it all would be hilarious if the stakes of the event weren't so high. It wouldn't surprise me if the stale stench of elitism still lingers in Hyde Park to this very day.

The Queen of Indignity and Corporate Endorsements - more commonly known as Madonna - cavorting around on stage and inviting the crowd to start a social revolution, topped all this off. Regardless of her musical merit, this woman has epitomised the corporate Fat Cat's infiltration of popular culture over the last two decades, flogging products like Pepsi, Motorola phones, BMW cars and even images of her own genitalia. Here was a woman so synonymous with Bling Culture urging the crowd to help those who can't afford a toothbrush let alone a gold tooth. She once begged her papa to stop preaching - now it's her turn to zip it. Hand over the microphone to those with a higher moral code and less double standards.

Other rock stars parade around with a holier-than-thou demeanour that is nauseating when you look at their other commercial activities. Surely something is amiss if we have bands taking the big corporate dollar by aggressively promoting luxury items like expensive mp3 players - a modern day status symbol unaffordable to many - whilst then urging all us common folk to think about various social injustices and inequality that these stars help reinforce. That's not to say that they are devoid of any conscience and sincerity, but charities shouldn't be used as a form of atonement for any guilt complex over luxurious lifestyles and lucrative endorsements.

However, not all famous folk have been drowning in an immoral quagmire of hypocrisy and shame. The ones who generally have a high moral code are those who you probably won't even be aware of. In direct contrast to Madonna is Annie Lennox, who donated all the proceeds from the 1999 Eurythmics tour to Amnesty International and Greenpeace without any self-aggrandizing publicity, whilst avoiding commercial endorsements throughout her career as a matter of principle. In 1990, the reclusive singer was quoted with saying the following words, which resonate very strongly to this day:

"There are two kinds of artists left: those who endorse Pepsi and those who simply won't."

It would be wrong to suggest taking a misanthropic approach by denying charities donations through sheer disgust at their celebrity-based promotional tactics. We should all strive to help others less fortunate than ourselves, as opposed to profiting from them. But at a time, when celebrity culture is threatening to absorb the globe like a malignant fungus, it's time for the public lift the huge veil that seems to have been pulled over the shamelessly hypocritical behaviour of many contemporary stars.