fetishizes

Fetishizes means to treat something with excessive or irrational devotion, often elevating it beyond its actual importance.

The word derives from fetish—originally a magical object, later a source of sexual fixation.

Someone who fetishizes vintage cars obsesses over them; someone who fetishizes youth culture fixates on it unnaturally.

The term often carries critical undertones, suggesting the attention is misplaced or objectifying: The film fetishizes violence.

Critics accuse the fashion industry of fetishizing thinness.