There’s nothing quite like seeing a celebrity. Either in person or in the endless ether of their social media, celebrities inspire the fascination and disgust that fuels our cultural conversation. Celebrities can do some good for the world, like connecting people across the globe through their art. However, whether their good to bad ratio creates a net gain is dubious. It’s not uncommon for someone to spend hours of their precious time obsessing over their favorite singer, actor or content creator. They could spend years of their life thinking about their favorite celebrity, or even worse talking about them. Despite famous people being the backbone of the cultural conversation, this camel’s back has finally been broken. A famous person is just a person, and in the attention economy, their stock price is too high. Celebrities are just people, and all of the money, couture and ill-begotten Vyvanse in the world can’t change the fact that for better or worse, stars are just like us.
The simple fact of celebrity appeal doesn’t bother me so much. Getting attention for being quiet, sitting still and looking pretty isn’t something I can get mad at. It’s just when they start to speak and move that I get irritated. In the past, celebrities like Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland used their image to change public perception of politics. They would use their voice to scream a rallying cry against a corrupt system. When contemporary celebrities speak, I promise you, such proverbs don’t come out. Though we may be told otherwise, I can say for a fact that Instagram slideshows with Canva infographics carry much less weight than Jane Fonda’s mugshot.
When I said their simple presence doesn’t bother me, I may have lied. Even when they are sitting still and looking pretty, celebrities and influencers can usually raise my 21-year-old blood pressure. I feel like Rip Van Winkle when I go onto social media sometimes: an alien in a familiar place but a strange time. Who are these people in our phones? What could they possibly be influencing so dramatically that they can put it in their job description? The term itself is bewildering. There’s a reason Barack Obama doesn’t have influencer in his job description; just as money talks and wealth whispers, real influencers don’t need to tell people of their impact.
When it’s easier to gain notoriety, there becomes a shrinking gap between Hollywood and some kid who’s just fulfilling Andy Warhol’s 15-minute prophecy. Of course a prophecy-baby and a nepo-baby might seem different, but in front of the right audience it’s all the same: fame is fame. Therein lies the straw on my back: if celebrities really are just people who speak in small words, why do we care so much when they speak? We don’t seem to care just a little bit either. Some people devote their entire beings to their favorite singer like some kind of pathetic sacrifice. I promise you no matter how many times you comment on Beyonce’s posts, she won’t pick you. Liking Harry Styles’ posts won’t make him fulfill some upsetting fanfiction fantasy you’ve been dreaming of. Always just shy of reality, celebrities stay at arms reach, far enough to seem like a God, but close enough to pass around the donation basket. This palm-up arm’s distance leaves modern celebrities just shy of the most reviled word in the dictionary: influencers.
If celebrities are the new influencers, then influencers must be the new used car salesmen. The only difference is I’d probably trust the used car salesman more. By only a few degrees of separation I know at least a few influencers and you probably do too (another back-breaking straw). Whether you went to high school with them or someone you know did, throw a stone and you’ll hit a TikTok star you probably have mutual friends with. While hitting them with a rock probably won’t do them any good unless it’s thrown hard enough and high enough, it helps us realize that celebrities aren’t as far away as we think.
While they may be nearby, their fame remains less of a moral strength and more a terminal condition. The scariest symptom of fame is a hugely inflated ego, but you can’t think highly of yourself without the height advantage of a big head. If you have a lot of followers on social media, don’t forget: it has no undergraduate equivalent, so lecturing should be left as something you listen to rather than take up as a hobby on Instagram live. Though we’ve looked at celebrities’ involvement in the real world more critically in recent years, the obsession continues. The glamor of celebrities has contrasted with the reality of the world recently, yet we cling to them and their unsolicited opinions regardless.
In my opinion a good celebrity is a quiet celebrity. When they get on their soapbox for a good cause, it’s a reason to throw tomatoes, when they get on their soapbox to tweet about geopolitics, it’s a reason to throw stones. It’s one thing to let them talk on the all-too-democratic wasteland known as Twitter, but when we actually listen to them, we end up degrading ourselves. Being degraded by a 19-year-old with a middle part doesn’t interest me, and unless you enjoy that in private, doing so in public should definitely be avoided.
Fame is subjective, and our attention to it should be minimal. It’s possible to enjoy art or entertainment without having someone else’s carefully crafted stage name behind it. When it comes to celebrity activism, there’s no such thing as too little. Leave the politicking to the professionals and stick to your day job. I don’t mean to be too harsh on the rich and famous, so my message to any celebrity is not to be too tough on yourself, you’ve got Father Time for that. If you take my advice, anything could happen. Who knows, if you stand still on stage long enough a stone might be aimed just high enough to do some good.
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The Smoking Section is where I observe the world at large, and put a magnifying glass on a subject we all hold dear to our hearts. As a member of Gen Z, I think it’s important that we take a step back and remember that life is not that serious, and no topic is too good to ridicule. In the Smoking Section, we take a step outside of the party for a breath of less-fresh air. Here if you don’t have anything nice to say, pull up a chair next to me.
@schmidtconrad
