Hard Pill to Swallow: Celebrities are not your friends

By: Jennie Brouse

I feel like the title should go without saying, but it seems that as the days move forward I tend to see more and more people drooling over idols that have no idea who they are. 

Celebrities (and politicians) put on a persona almost every time they leave the house; every performance, every meet and greet and every campaign speech is curated by dozens of people before being publicized. Behind closed doors, we have no idea how they actually behave, and frankly, it should not be any of our business. 

We get so invested in celebrity lives that we tend to lose ourselves, becoming more enveloped in their lives than our own. Not even to mention the fact that their lives are once again, not at all like what we see on their social media posts and the movies they may star in. 

The same can be applied to politicians, we do not know them as people, just as the persona they put on for the general public. Their entire existence is geared to the public liking them and they have a team of people working to help them maintain a positive public image. 

Holding these public figures to higher standards may be easy with the several degrees of separation from fan to a public figure, but a lot of times it seems that we forget to even regard them as people. 

Every scandal, every slip of the tongue and even every grocery store visit is watched and analyzed by the world looking at these public figures. 

We do not need to be intimately involved in these people’s lives. But alas, the people of the internet tend to feel entitled to the intimacies of a person who already has a strong public existence. 

Recent examples easily include the surplus of celebrities being outed to the world as cheating on their partners. Yes, they deserve the consequences of their actions from the person they have wronged and from people in their personal lives. It is fine to be upset with a public figure for doing such actions as well, but asking for personal apologies from a celebrity that has no idea who you are is weird and overstepping. 

Commenting on the cheated party’s social media pages with reminders that their partner cheated on them is gross and overbearing. These people do not know you, they are clearly already going through struggles, and they do not currently need your input. 

Obsessing over any person, especially when the person doing the obsessing does not personally know the one they are obsessing over is also just strange.

A lot of people also talk about celebrities, or even talk to celebrities, as if they have known them their whole lives when in reality, they only know their public persona. 

People send direct messages to celebrities on social media, a lot of times sexually graphic or weird. In many cases, this would be considered sexual harassment. Just because they are famous or have a larger following does not mean harassing them is okay and they are not “asking for it” by being well-known. Nobody deserves to be harassed, regardless of celebrity status. 

It is okay to be a fan, but being obsessed and being a fan are two very different things. I enjoy Adam Driver’s movies, but I do not need to know what he had for breakfast this morning. We are not “besties”, we do not know each other, it would be weird if I were to talk to him about his personal life out of nowhere.