Before the era of smartphones, the internet, and social media, fame was an elusive concept. Having the whole world know your name was tantalizing and, for most, impossible to achieve. This enigmatic air around fame made it something many dreamed of attaining.
Today, the way people rise to relevance has drastically shifted – household names can be made seemingly overnight. This change in how people become famous has brought with it a transformation in how the general public reacts to and interacts with public figures. The everyday use of social media and an increase in the sharing of our lives across these platforms has created an uncanny para-socialism where people feel as though they truly know the celebrities they follow – and in a way, it’s hard to blame them.
It’s far from uncommon to know every move of the artists we love – their thoughts, feelings, hobbies, even their exact locations are effortless to piece together if you’re paying enough attention. This unprecedented insight into the private lives of stars has turned celebrity culture on its head. While celebs of the past had to worry about paparazzi, tabloids, and the occasional super-fan, social media has presented the unique dilemma of allowing for all three at once – constantly.
Chappell Roan, a Midwest native pop star known for her love of glitz, glamor, and drag, has become our latest victim of unhinged celebrity culture following her recent skyrocket to fame. Roan (who just one year ago was relatively unknown in the public sphere) has since suffered from stalking, sexual harassment, and threats to herself and her family. She described an experience of being in a bar for a friend’s birthday when a fan grabbed and kissed her without consent. Another time, fans ambushed her at the airport, causing so much chaos that airport police had to intervene.
“I feel like fame is just abusive,” she said in a recent interview. “The vibe of this – stalking, talking s*** online, [people who] won’t leave you alone, yelling at you in public – is the vibe of an abusive ex-husband. That’s what it feels like. I didn’t know it would feel this bad.”
While Roan’s experiences are extreme, they’re reflective of the incline of invasive behavior that’s been continuously normalized for celebrities for decades now. More tenured figures such as Lorde, Mitski, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga have all reportedly reached out to Roan, offering her words of advice and solace while she navigates a new world of disturbing stardom.
Despite the support for Roan, she’s also received a lot of flak. After sharing an Instagram post urging fans to respect her boundaries, a common response was the claim that her choice to step into the spotlight nullified her right to a private life. A post that garnered 48,000 likes on the platform X by user @deaunteee quips, “When I’m in [a] complain off, and my opponent is Chappell Roan,” insinuating all the artist does is criticize the undeniably privileged position she’s been put in.
While it can’t be denied the opportunities celebrities are presented because of their fame, it’s arbitrary to negate the dangerous and negative experiences that come along with modern day fame. Existing in a constant state of privacy invasion leaves a person with no choice but to be on constant edge, which almost guarantees an eventual breakdown, à la Britney Spears’ 2007 head shaving.
Roan commented on this standard of expecting impossible levels of engagement from public figures, saying, “This industry and artistry f***ing thrive on mental illness, burnout, overworking yourself, overextending yourself, not sleeping. You get bigger the more unhealthy you are”.
The way we treat celebrities today is wholly unethical and unsustainable. Fan culture on social media platforms exacerbates the dehumanization of these figures; because many celebs offer so much of their life online, people end up with an extreme sense of entitlement. Many fans feel they’re not only owed attention from their favorite artists but that they’re free to treat them in whatever invasive ways they see fit.
Fame, once an elusive and desirable concept, continues to devolve into a burdening lifestyle that inevitably impacts celebrities for the worse. We shouldn’t be blaming stars like Roan for choosing to complain and call out the inappropriate behavior she and countless others endure. Instead, we should second guess the ways we interact with celebrity culture and stop normalizing an aggressive infringement on the lives of people we, frankly, don’t truly know.