When I saw that notes received more activity than your elegant thoughtful essays, this encouraged me to reread this important piece a 2nd time. (I think the instant interactive nature of notes may be symptomatic of the exact phenomena describe in your essay: social media fosters an unreal sense of immediacy and connection!) Eliza’s essay hit home for me too. I love reading your crucial insights into the dangerous rise of fanatical allegiance to celebrities. The more we speak up, the better chance we have to create a sea change in this increasingly unsustainable, stalker like fan culture. Weirdly I feel odd commenting, because by writing to you I’m assuming a level of familiarity that is contradictory to the detached remove of social media. But, I feel like this issue of celebrity worship can be a life or death situation: how many beautiful bright minds have we lost far too soon as a causality of fame and abusive hero worship? (Buckley, Elliot Smith, Winehouse, more lives than I can even count.) I live in a big west coast city, near where Cobain lived back in the 90s. His so-called fans make pilgrimages to his death site, his old house. This violence against his heartbreaking memory deeply unsettles me, because Cobain’s sudden rise to fame (similar what we are seeing with good Chappell’s rapid ascent) directly led to his early demise, nervous breakdown, and worse. Never have I assumed a sense of ownership over famous people, nor dismissed a celebrity’s humanity by viewing them as a money product to be bought or sold, nor felt any entitlement to their complex private lives. (I’m not defending class hierarchies or wealth hoarding. I will defend people’s inner humanity till the end.) I agree with you wholeheartedly: internet culture needs to interrogate why so many fans develop obsessions with stars and why fans somehow believe they are entitled to famous people’s lives. There must be an end in sight for the disturbing, dehumanizing behavior from supposed fans who seem to show no respect for a famous person’s complex inner nature and human dignity. Your beautiful essay is a vital step in the right direction. Turning people into gods, idols, and superheroes is dangerous, a cruel sign of hubris, and potentially the violence can turn deadly. People deserve better. Thank you for speaking out on this painful subject.
Jessica, you always leave the most thoughtful comments and i love it!! Thank you for reading and engaging <3
You are 100% right. The obsession with celebrity culture it’s scary mainly because we have and could potentially loose more lives to the insane standards celebrities are held to, but also because we shouldn’t care so much about their personal lives!!! I hope more people speak about this and we can start being normal towards famous people
yes!! i have always felt so strongly about this topic. like when people camp out at celebrity homes for hugs or autographs or whatever — like do you even see them as a human at that point? it’s stalker creepy behavior. and even if they did give you what you wanted, aren’t you embarrassed? like you didn’t even have a real conversation with them???
but anyways i thoroughly enjoyed reading this, it was so well written🫶🏼
There's a Sarah Marshall (podcaster, host of You're Wrong About) quote that lives in my head rent-free: Fame is a type of abuse.
Same! This episode-- about Princess Di-- is a great addition to this conversation. It completely changed the way I think about fame.
When I saw that notes received more activity than your elegant thoughtful essays, this encouraged me to reread this important piece a 2nd time. (I think the instant interactive nature of notes may be symptomatic of the exact phenomena describe in your essay: social media fosters an unreal sense of immediacy and connection!) Eliza’s essay hit home for me too. I love reading your crucial insights into the dangerous rise of fanatical allegiance to celebrities. The more we speak up, the better chance we have to create a sea change in this increasingly unsustainable, stalker like fan culture. Weirdly I feel odd commenting, because by writing to you I’m assuming a level of familiarity that is contradictory to the detached remove of social media. But, I feel like this issue of celebrity worship can be a life or death situation: how many beautiful bright minds have we lost far too soon as a causality of fame and abusive hero worship? (Buckley, Elliot Smith, Winehouse, more lives than I can even count.) I live in a big west coast city, near where Cobain lived back in the 90s. His so-called fans make pilgrimages to his death site, his old house. This violence against his heartbreaking memory deeply unsettles me, because Cobain’s sudden rise to fame (similar what we are seeing with good Chappell’s rapid ascent) directly led to his early demise, nervous breakdown, and worse. Never have I assumed a sense of ownership over famous people, nor dismissed a celebrity’s humanity by viewing them as a money product to be bought or sold, nor felt any entitlement to their complex private lives. (I’m not defending class hierarchies or wealth hoarding. I will defend people’s inner humanity till the end.) I agree with you wholeheartedly: internet culture needs to interrogate why so many fans develop obsessions with stars and why fans somehow believe they are entitled to famous people’s lives. There must be an end in sight for the disturbing, dehumanizing behavior from supposed fans who seem to show no respect for a famous person’s complex inner nature and human dignity. Your beautiful essay is a vital step in the right direction. Turning people into gods, idols, and superheroes is dangerous, a cruel sign of hubris, and potentially the violence can turn deadly. People deserve better. Thank you for speaking out on this painful subject.
Jessica, you always leave the most thoughtful comments and i love it!! Thank you for reading and engaging <3
You are 100% right. The obsession with celebrity culture it’s scary mainly because we have and could potentially loose more lives to the insane standards celebrities are held to, but also because we shouldn’t care so much about their personal lives!!! I hope more people speak about this and we can start being normal towards famous people
yes!! i have always felt so strongly about this topic. like when people camp out at celebrity homes for hugs or autographs or whatever — like do you even see them as a human at that point? it’s stalker creepy behavior. and even if they did give you what you wanted, aren’t you embarrassed? like you didn’t even have a real conversation with them???
but anyways i thoroughly enjoyed reading this, it was so well written🫶🏼