Stop being weird about famous people.

Chappell Roan has recently been under fire for asking her fans to not intrude on her personal life, and I think she has been way too kind about it.

Living in the era of social media has allowed people to feel like they personally know influencers who only exist in the context of the virtual world. The influencers we see on social media are almost never the same people on our phones as they are in real life. The thing that makes a person an influencer is the fact that they are essentially a human billboard, meant to sell us products, ideas, and a lifestyle. They curate their image to be as palatable as possible to a wide audience, giving us a surface level understanding of who they are behind the camera in order to seem more personable and make their advertisements seem more relatable. Even when a video is not outright sponsored, we are still subconsciously inspired to buy whatever it is that they are using. They intentionally make it seem like we are just like them; if​​ they like a product, then we probably will too.

I don’t want it to seem like I’m staunchly against influencer culture. I consider myself “un-influenceable”, but I can appreciate the incredible amount of dedication it takes to make yourself bland enough for viewers to project their own ideas onto you, while also remaining engaging and entertaining. What I do think is worthy of critique is that the marketing of a personality allows people who have never seen you off their phone screens to feel like they intimately know you. Regular people think they know every single aspect of these influencers’ personal lives, and oftentimes get personally offended when something they have absolutely no business knowing is revealed. 

This type of behavior isn’t even limited to social media influencers. Although we have moved away from the era of paparazzi and tabloids, the urge to intrude on the personal lives of celebrities has not dissipated. The rise of TikTok accounts dedicated entirely to “blind items”, such as Deux Moi, continue to perpetuate our culture’s obsession with celebrities and their personal lives. People crave knowing the secrets of the rich and famous, even to the detriment of those who cannot live in privacy anymore. 

People are being so weird about influencers and celebrities that it’s genuinely starting to worry me. There are entire Reddit pages dedicated to intruding on the lives of these people, and there are people who spend hours moderating said platforms. Some people are able to sustain their livelihoods by sharing these rumors and opinions on people they do not know. 

Chappell Roan has done something I think so many more influencers and celebrities should do. She set a strong boundary. Harassing someone online is already incredibly weird. Bringing that harassment to the real world is so deplorable, and I cannot figure out why anyone would ever think that was normal and acceptable. Bringing yourself and your talent to the public already puts a person into such a vulnerable position, and for strangers to feel entitled to demand even more is incredibly dehumanizing in a way I can’t even articulate. We all agree that stalking is very strange and puts people at risk. Why is this any different? 

I think we all need to take a look inwards and figure out why we feel like influencers and celebrities have an obligation to lay all their cards out to us. That is a level of vulnerability many people can never achieve for themselves, and it’s a little ridiculous to expect people who are already subjected to so much more scrutiny to do the same. We do not know these people, and they do not know us. Everyone is entitled to keep their personal affairs close to their chests, and I think that we all have that right, regardless of how famous some of us may be.