Allegory of the Arts, by Jacob de Wit
As I was swiping through TikTok for the third hour in a row, my arm tired of holding my neck up and my body in a state of partial paralysis, a thought came to me. Well, actually, it was two thoughts. One was that the sun had already set, and I barely even noticed, so it was probably time to stop rotting in bed and go outside. Another was that amid old hateful tweet breakdowns and accusations of cultural insensitivity, I had stopped finding the celebrity world as appealing as I used to. That took me on a journey of exploring how and when I went from watching every interview with fascination and adoration to taking every piece of celebrity news with a grain of salt. So, instead of going outside and smelling the grass freshly covered in evening raindrops, I decided to stay in and contemplate my declining interest in the lore of celebrity culture.
So, where did it all begin? And when exactly did I go from adoration to contempt and disappointment? As a young girl growing up in the 2000s, celebrity culture was almost a mandatory subject to educate myself on. As the digital world grew, so did the number of pop culture trivia I needed to learn to continue actively participating in casual conversations. Right now, my TikTok screen time is reaching scary numbers, and all the information I need, from celebrity controversy to what mascara an actress used in her red-carpet makeup look, is at the tip of my fingers. When I was growing up, though, I needed to actively search for information and constantly update my knowledge. For a 14-year-old girl who is already scared to say more than two words in a row, not following the conversation was the scariest thing in the world.
I must say that the need to constantly keep up with the lives of people I wasn’t even sure I liked, combined with the constant insecurities born from comparisons that most teenagers make to online content, will be a topic in my therapy sessions for years to come.
However, as I dove deeper and deeper into the world of red carpet pictures and late-night talk show interviews, one thing became clear: the multi-million dollar industry of pushing celebrity content to the masses based itself on one simple idea – they are above you. That ‘above’ can be defined in many different ways. Above in the financial bracket, above in the social status, above in the beauty standards, but always above. So there I was, watching these unreachable people live their sparkly lives. I was simultaneously dreaming of such a life and enjoying the view from the outside, seeing the glamour without the problematic layers that arise once you dig deeper. That was then, this is now. Now that I am a fully conscious adult, let’s just say I have some questions. I always consumed a lot of media, so the more I grew up, the more I began to listen, and the more I realised that some of the things I heard celebrities say are problematic at best. Out of sheer curiosity, I would rewatch videos, movies, and interviews I played repeatedly as a child only to realise that they had not only negatively impacted how I viewed the world but were sometimes straight-up weird.
I feel like there are others who share this opinion. Discussing it with my friends, I have realised that we collectively went from watching to watching ironically and eventually to being generally disappointed in the scripted and inauthentic content pushed down our throats by popular media outlets. I also realised that the deeper I went into the rabbit hole of awful things celebrities have done and said, the more picky I became with the content I consume. The second I became aware of the systems put in place for celebrities to continue enjoying the perks of their fame, the concept of them being ‘above’ crumbled in seconds. And let me just specify: when I use the umbrella term ‘celebrities’, I do not mean all of them. Of course, there are some generally lovely people who worked hard on their craft and are now reaping the fruits of their labour. That said, I don’t think I need to go into detail on the type of celebrities I mean when discussing these issues. I will not be naming names since I do not want this to be taken as a personal attack against anyone. All I’ll say is that you can figure out who I mean with a simple Google search.
I can’t speak for everyone, nor can I assume that the problem of the public losing trust in their favourite artists or creators will be solved by this, but what I would enjoy more is accountability. I know that with TikTok working overtime to share people’s experiences and motivating people to be brave and come out with their own stories, we have created systems to hold many famous people accountable for their actions. But wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t need to? Wouldn’t it be better to get such transparency from those we spend our time watching and reading about that we don’t need to investigate and try to uncover the hidden truths? Wouldn’t it be great if people with the power to influence used that power in the right way and supported issues that desperately need public attention? The kind of attention that, unfortunately, many people can only give if inspired by their favourite celebrity.
In fairness, I should mention that we, as the public, have also sometimes allowed ourselves a little too much when it comes to a person rising to fame. The debate of whether a fan is entitled to their favourite celebrity’s personal time because they choose to spend their money and time supporting the celebrity always pops up when discussing the boundaries that we, as the audience, are stretching when we interact with someone famous. To be honest, I don’t think we are. Nor should we get upset if a person who has chosen a career that puts them in the public eye occasionally requests a bit of privacy from time to time. Being generally pleasant, though, is something I think they should do. Not because they’re celebrities, but because it’s always best to be nice to people.
I also can’t talk about the reduced appeal of blindly following a celebrity (while ignoring their shortcomings) without discussing the lengths we, as the public, sometimes go to during a collective celebrity takedown. The growing mob mentality pushes people to jump on the trend when a celebrity gets cancelled. As the number of videos and posts grows, the noise often becomes so loud that the original narrative gets pushed aside, and the lesson the public and the celebrity in question need to learn gets lost in all the chaos. Instead, we end up with no real progress and, often, a forced apology, with vague references to accusations and textbook words on accountability thrown in our faces just to calm us down. Of course, and rightly so, these apologies often add fuel to the fire, as the original issue isn’t adequately addressed, and the public doesn’t see genuine growth.
I think this decline in my idealisation of celebrity life made me realise that I need transparency from people whose content I choose to consume. It also showed me that these people are just people—not above or below, but flawed like anyone else. I am unsure what the future of the relationship between an artist and their audience holds. However, I know that for this relationship to become more positive and uplifting, there must be a certain level of honesty and boundaries on both sides.