Celebrity news is a huge business. Between tabloids, paparazzi, and social media, someone is watching what famous people are doing pretty much all the time. It’s easy to think that with all that money, they deserve the constant scrutiny that comes with being in the public eye. They signed up for this, right? But it’s so much more complicated than that.
Modern celebrity is fraught with questions about privacy, and where the line is when it comes to the public and the personal lives of the famous people they idolize or vilify. Fans feel entitled to know every little detail about the private lives of the people they see in movies or on TV.
Social Media and Celebrity
This is only amplified by social media and technology. It is easier than ever for one story to make its rounds across the world in a matter of hours. It empowers the tabloid culture and makes celebrities a thing of public consumption. We feel as though we have the right to know who Jennifer Anniston is sleeping with or what Meghan Markle said in text messages to her father.
Social media is great because it puts the power back into the hands of the individual when it comes to what celebrities want to share about their personal lives. However, social media also allows tabloids to spread their stories farther and faster than ever before.
What Happens When Celebrities Don’t Want To Play
When celebrities shy away from that kind of coverage, they are often completely trashed as being ungrateful for their unwillingness to participate in the culture of salaciousness surrounding fame. Markle is a perfect example of this. Her dislike of media coverage surrounding her has caused tabloid coverage to turn even more critical. Many fans and foes claim that she signed up for this when she married a prince. She, therefore, should simply have to take every jab and invasion that comes her way.
This is unfair to celebrities. Yes, they are privileged and rich and they live in houses the rest of us can only dream of. They wear clothes that cost more than most people’s cars. They are worthy of our envy, but that does not mean they deserve the unbridled scrutiny and criticism that comes with modern fame.
These people are doing their jobs. Their jobs pay better than most people’s and have a lot of really cool perks, but that doesn’t mean that their fans are entitled to every deep and intimate detail. Our culture has evolved to believe that celebrities belong to us, that their lives are ours for public consumption. We have completely forgotten that celebrities are people too.
