Latest / Mini Scroll / Chappell Roan & The Plight of Celebrity Access: How Social Media Has Changed Fan Expectations & Commodified The Celebrity Experience

Transcript

Chappell Roan & The Plight of Celebrity Access: How Social Media Has Changed Fan Expectations & Commodified The Celebrity Experience · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  On August 19th, 2024, Chapel Roan posted 2 TikTok videos that
• 0:05
  struck a nerve with fans. The pop star, who experienced a
• 0:09
  meteoric rise in the span of just a few months, was
• 0:12
  complaining about the creepy behavior of fans who approach
• 0:15
  her in public. I don't care that this crazy
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  type of behavior comes along with the job, the career field
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  I've chosen. That does not make it OK.
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  That doesn't make it normal. I don't.
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  Doesn't mean I want it. Doesn't mean that I like it.
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  I don't want whatever the fuck you think you're supposed to be
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  entitled to whenever you see a celebrity.
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  I'll give a fuck. If you think it's selfish with
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  me to say no for a photo or for your time or to for a hug,
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  that's not normal. That's weird.
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  It's weird how people think that you know a person just 'cause
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  you see them online or you listen to the art they make.
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  That's fucking weird. I'm allowed to say no to creepy
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  behavior, OK. A few weeks later, Chapel caused
• 1:02
  another stir when she called her fans out again on TikTok for
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  their disappointment that she wouldn't endorse AUS
• 1:08
  presidential candidate in a new interview with The Guardian.
• 1:11
  I have encouraged people to use critical thinking skills, learn
• 1:16
  about what they're voting for, learn about who they're voting
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  for, and ask questions. Again, Chapel received a wave of
• 1:22
  backlash for her approach in addressing the issue.
• 1:25
  Though Chapel had spoken out about her experiences with
• 1:28
  entitled fans in previous interviews, these times were
• 1:32
  different. Rather than using a podcast host
• 1:34
  or a journalist to filter the message, Chapel used to TikTok
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  to speak directly to her fans, something that more and more
• 1:42
  celebrities are expected to do to serve their personal brands.
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  But over the years, just like with Chapel, we've seen the
• 1:49
  consequences of these expectations backfire.
• 1:53
  Chapel faced even more criticism for her delivery on TikTok than
• 1:56
  her initial statements in the interview, pushing her to the
• 1:59
  point of announcing a social media hiatus.
• 2:02
  This is a look at the plight of celebrity access, how social
• 2:06
  media has changed the business of celebrity brand building,
• 2:09
  keeping stars in a lose lose feedback loop that fuels fan
• 2:13
  entitlement and ultimately runs most most of our favorite
• 2:16
  artists offline, almost completely from Centennial
• 2:21
  World. I'm Lauren Meisner and this is
• 2:23
  Infinite Scroll, a podcast about Internet culture, the creator
• 2:27
  economy and how social media is shaping Gen.
• 2:29
  Z Welcome back to Infinite Scroll, everyone.
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• 2:36
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• 2:39
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• 2:42
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  On Fridays we round up the five biggest thing pieces on the
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  Internet from that week. OK, I have a couple of reviews
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  I've been listening to the pod for a few months now and it's
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  Thanks for being the background sound when I'm cleaning.
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  day. Maybe I'll do an update on
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  everything that I haven't covered in the last like week or
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  two this week on Mini and Rita Seeker from Canada says love
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  this podcast. Thanks for all the work you put
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  in. Always recommended to people.
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  It means so much when you guys recommend the pod to your
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  friends and family. Please keep doing it.
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  And Charlotte on Spotify said thank you Lauren for another
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  incredible commentary. This is one of my favorite
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  podcasts. Thank you so much for putting so
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  much time into your uploads. Thank you Charlotte and thank
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  you to my team who makes it all possible.
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  Genuinely Annabelle and Danny. Long before Pop Crave and Pop
• 4:29
  Base were battling it out for the best pop culture update
• 4:32
  account on X, celebrity enthusiasts had to turn to
• 4:35
  magazines and interviews for the latest updates.
• 4:38
  But things have clearly changed since then.
• 4:40
  With social media and dedicated accounts tracking celebrities
• 4:44
  every move, along with many public figures managing their
• 4:47
  own platforms, we now have unprecedented access to their
• 4:50
  thoughts, actions and projects in real time.
• 4:53
  This access is a double edged sword.
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  It fuels celebrity status and helps build loyal fan bases, but
• 4:59
  it's also incredibly invasive. That being said, prying into the
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  personal lives of public figures was a common practice long
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  before the social media era. Before Instagram and TikTok took
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  over, celebrity culture was driven by gossip magazines,
• 5:14
  paparazzi, and tabloids packed with scandalous and
• 5:17
  sensationalized stories. Through the 90s and early 2000s,
• 5:21
  celebrities relied on these outlets for visibility, though
• 5:24
  the attention was often uncomfortable.
• 5:26
  TMZ. Just Jared and Perez Hilton, All
• 5:29
  which launched in 2005, would relentlessly cover celebrities
• 5:33
  personal lives, from relationships to rumors.
• 5:36
  Perez Hilton, in particular, became infamous for posting
• 5:39
  paparazzi shots with his own captions and doodles.
• 5:42
  Though these mediums weren't always accurate, they kept
• 5:45
  people hooked on celebrity drama and were among the quickest ways
• 5:48
  to follow the lives of Hollywood's elite.
• 5:51
  In a piece for Vanity Fair from 1999, David Camp explores why
• 5:55
  people became obsessed with tabloids through the 90s,
• 5:58
  focusing on American media and population.
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  From his perspective, the tabloidification of the media
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  was rather unexpected. Quote At the close of the
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  previous decade, there was a loose consensus that the 1990s
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  were going to be a reaction to the 1980s, which is to say a
• 6:14
  reaction against materialism, merger mania and crassness.
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  A sort of new sanitized 1960s where one world ISM and
• 6:23
  spirituality would reign minus the hard drugs and free love.
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  Camp rights However, it was the advanced technology and
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  increased vulgarity of the 90s culture that led media and
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  celebrity culture down a different path where tabloids
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  started to dominate this era Quote It's the dance between
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  these factors and downloadable and the down and dirty that has
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  led to the tabloid decades, particularly explicit brand of
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  tabloidism. Camp continues Quote This
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  combination. More media outlets and more
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  vulgarity created a harsh, logaric early 1990s landscape
• 6:56
  where the competition for television and viewers, not to
• 6:59
  mention newspaper readers and radio listeners, were
• 7:01
  unprecedentedly fierce. The tabloid decade carried
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  through the 2000s only became more unhinged over the years.
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  Celebrities, women more often than men, were trapped in a
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  harsh media cycle shaped by the cutthroat culture of the
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  previous decade. From Britney Spears's breakdown
• 7:18
  where paparazzi relentlessly pursued her during her mental
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  health struggles to Lindsay Lohan's battle with addiction
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  and arrests, it was clear gossip magazines and the media were
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  profits sitting off these deeply personal and often demoralizing
• 7:31
  stories. By the end of the decade, as
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  Anne Helen Peterson writes for BuzzFeed News, celebrities were
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  largely beholden to paparazzi and gossip blogs.
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  Quote celebrities were forced to remain vigilant and how and when
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  they appeared in public, terrified that a snippet of
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  unflattering, unbecoming, or straight up scandalous footage
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  would make its way to TMZ, she explains.
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  Publicist and marketers were pressured to step in as
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  paparazzi and gossip blogs gained influence without the
• 7:59
  journalistic integrity or ethical boundaries of
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  traditional outlets. This led to increased
• 8:04
  collaboration between celebrities, their teams, and
• 8:06
  established media outlets like People and Entertainment
• 8:09
  Tonight. As Peterson explains, they
• 8:11
  worked together to combat the narratives coming from the
• 8:14
  sources outside the traditional Hollywood machine.
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  The result, however, was probably not exactly what they
• 8:20
  were looking for. Quote The celebrities didn't
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  Vanquish the paparazzi so much as figure out how to undercut
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  them and the publications they fueled.
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  In the end, the solution was so straightforward, Celebrities
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  simply became their own paparazzi, posting all manner of
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  details and footage of their daily lives on social media and
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  effectively putting real paparazzi out of business,
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  Peterson adds. That's not to say these old
• 8:44
  school sources of celebrity news have disappeared.
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  They're just less effective now. One major reason they're less
• 8:50
  impactful is that the way we engage with celebrities has
• 8:53
  changed dramatically, largely thanks to social media and
• 8:57
  fandom culture. Twitter is a key example here.
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  Before Elon Musk took over and tanked the platform, it was huge
• 9:04
  for Stan culture. We've already covered Stan
• 9:06
  culture in detail, most recently in our Rise of the Gen.
• 9:09
  Z Pop Girlies episode, so check that out if you missed it.
• 9:13
  But for anyone unfamiliar with Stan Twitter, it peaked in the
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  2000 tens and was full of hardcore fans or stands deeply
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  committed to their faves, building entire communities
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  around celebrities. It was a space where fandoms
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  connected with these celebrities, shared inside
• 9:27
  jokes, and fiercely rallied for award show wins.
• 9:30
  Some of the most prolific fandoms during this era included
• 9:33
  the Swifties, Believers, Directioners, and the BTS Army.
• 9:37
  Celebrities like Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, and
• 9:40
  Ariana Grande not only tweeted at their fans, but also engaged
• 9:44
  in full blown conversations both in public mentions and private
• 9:48
  DMS. Justin in particular became known for his Twitter presence,
• 9:51
  following around 270,000 people, many of whom were fans, early in
• 9:57
  his career. Here, he would regularly go on
• 9:59
  follow sprees and respond to fan tweets with jokes or words of
• 10:03
  appreciation, building a close connection with his audience.
• 10:06
  This was an entirely new level of access to celebrities.
• 10:09
  Fans could now essentially have conversations with public
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  figures in real time. No longer did people have to
• 10:15
  rely on secondary sources like gossip blogs and paparazzi
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  pictures. They could get updates directly
• 10:21
  from the celebrities themselves and essentially ask them
• 10:24
  anything they wanted. This connection only deepened in
• 10:27
  2015 mean when Twitter rolled out an update allowing users to
• 10:31
  send direct messages to celebrities even if they weren't
• 10:34
  mutuals. Before that, DMS were only
• 10:36
  possible between accounts that followed each other, so when
• 10:39
  this change dropped, it became another way for the general
• 10:42
  public to access celebrities. Now, this kind of interaction is
• 10:45
  standard across most social media platforms, with users able
• 10:49
  to DM celebrities on Instagram and TikTok, even though usually
• 10:52
  they must accept message requests.
• 10:54
  While it's unlikely that public figures will actually see these
• 10:57
  messages, the concept was game changing and pushed parasocial
• 11:00
  relationships to unprecedented levels.
• 11:03
  That is, until TikTok came along.
• 11:06
  We've talked about this a lot on this podcast, but TikTok and the
• 11:09
  parasocial relationships at Foster's have seriously altered
• 11:12
  how we interact with celebrities.
• 11:14
  The rise of TikTok coincided with the onset of the pandemic
• 11:18
  and worldwide lockdowns. Some people were on the front
• 11:20
  lines as essential workers, some people were trying to work from
• 11:23
  home in tiny apartments with roommates, and some people were
• 11:26
  trying to juggle full time work while also supporting their
• 11:29
  children's full time Zoom school.
• 11:31
  During this time, celebrities started showing up on social
• 11:34
  media more frequently. This led to a few instances
• 11:37
  where the disparity between regular people and the celebrity
• 11:40
  class became more apparent than ever.
• 11:43
  Gal Gadot's Imagine video, which will be seared in our memories
• 11:46
  forever. Imagine There's no Heaven is
• 11:51
  case in point. The actress enlisted a dozen or
• 11:54
  so of her A list friends to sing Imagine by John Lennon into
• 11:58
  their phones as a gesture of solidarity for their fans.
• 12:02
  The video faced intense backlash given these celebrities were
• 12:05
  singing to us from the safety of their mansions, privileged
• 12:08
  enough to take these months at home as downtime.
• 12:10
  Then there were the Instagram lives.
• 12:13
  Unable to entertain us from TV or film, celebrities took to
• 12:16
  Instagram Live during lockdowns to stay connected with their
• 12:19
  fans. Again, this trend felt out of
• 12:21
  touch and self-serving. No one wanted to watch 2
• 12:24
  millionaire a listers interview each other on their phones as
• 12:28
  they sat safely in their mansions.
• 12:30
  There are many other examples of weird things that celebrities
• 12:33
  did during lockdown, but the gist of it is that we were burnt
• 12:37
  out and desperate to connect with people we could actually
• 12:40
  relate to and so we flocked to TikTok.
• 12:43
  At the start, TikTok genuinely was regular people filming in
• 12:47
  regular spaces, showing their regular lives.
• 12:50
  It was an online space that was pretty much free of celebrities
• 12:53
  except for Jason Derülo, and in turn, it birthed an entirely new
• 12:57
  form of Internet fame. But as Tik Tok's user base grew
• 13:00
  and its influence started to rival that of YouTube and
• 13:02
  Instagram, Hollywood realized the power of showing a more
• 13:05
  relatable side to the celebrity brand, forcing an otherwise old
• 13:10
  school industry to rethink its traditional promotional
• 13:13
  strategies. While social media has been
• 13:15
  important to the celebrity brand for over a decade, the
• 13:18
  unprecedented rise of TikTok has turned posting on social media
• 13:21
  into a non negotiable for budding stars.
• 13:24
  Now, social media has become the way to legitimize celebrity
• 13:28
  branding, build a fandom and secure brand deals.
• 13:31
  And a lot of that work is left to the celebrities to figure out
• 13:34
  themselves. As artist and producer Mike
• 13:36
  Barnett told journalist Ali Dever Quote, record labels used
• 13:40
  to be far more involved in the development and promotion of
• 13:42
  artists. Social media has allowed them to
• 13:45
  pass the buck and put much of the burden of promotion onto the
• 13:48
  artists themselves. Most labels, major or indie,
• 13:51
  won't don't even think about signing an artist who doesn't
• 13:54
  already have big numbers on their social and streaming
• 13:56
  platforms. This expectation to show up on
• 13:59
  social media extends to establish celebrities now as
• 14:02
  well. In 2022, Halsey spoke out about
• 14:05
  her record label trying to force a viral TikTok moment for her
• 14:08
  music. Basically, I have a song that I
• 14:10
  love that I want to release ASAP, but my record label won't
• 14:13
  let me. I've been in this industry for
• 14:15
  eight years and I've sold over 165,000,000 records and my
• 14:19
  record company is saying that I can't release it unless they can
• 14:22
  fake a viral moment on TikTok. Everything is marketing and they
• 14:25
  are doing this to basically every artist these days.
• 14:28
  I just want to release music man and I deserve better.
• 14:31
  To be honest, I'm tired. It's not just executives that
• 14:34
  expect celebrities to show up online.
• 14:36
  The business of celebrity is expensive and for many next Gen.
• 14:40
  artists, actors and models, securing brand deals is
• 14:43
  imperative to being able to afford to continue pursuing
• 14:46
  their career. In a 2022 interview with The
• 14:48
  Hollywood Reporter, A List actress Sydney Sweeney explained
• 14:51
  how the industry has changed and why she needs to align herself
• 14:55
  with brand sponsorships to continue acting.
• 14:57
  Quote. They don't pay actors like they
• 14:59
  used to. And with streamers, you no
• 15:01
  longer get residuals. The established stars still get
• 15:04
  paid. But I have to give 5% to my
• 15:06
  lawyer, 10% to my agents, 3% or something like that to my
• 15:09
  business manager. I have to pay my publicist every
• 15:12
  month and that's more than my mortgage.
• 15:14
  It's not that she wants people to feel badly for her, but she
• 15:17
  is adamant that the luxuries of the job not gloss over the
• 15:20
  realities of the business. To stay relevant as a young
• 15:23
  actress, particularly so deeply entrenched in and reliant on the
• 15:27
  Internet generation, requires investment.
• 15:29
  There's a lot of press to do and the associated costs, styling,
• 15:33
  tailoring, hair and makeup travel aren't always covered by
• 15:37
  a network. She says this is what motivated
• 15:39
  her to pivot into brand deals, taking gigs as a Mew Mew
• 15:42
  ambassador and starring in an Armani beauty campaign.
• 15:45
  If I just acted, I wouldn't be able to afford my life in Lai
• 15:49
  take deals because I have to quote.
• 15:51
  To secure those brand deals, you need an engaged fan base.
• 15:55
  And for Gen. Z stars like Chapel Roan, Olivia
• 15:57
  Rodrigo and Tate McRae, TikTok is the most natural place to
• 16:01
  nurture parasocial relationships with their fans.
• 16:04
  A 2023 study by Jan Klosterman, Martin Meissner, Alexander Max
• 16:08
  and Reinhold Decker verified the importance of parasocial
• 16:11
  relationships to a celebrity's bottom line.
• 16:14
  Through their research, they found that social media
• 16:16
  popularity is a quote key objective for many celebrities,
• 16:20
  as brand endorsements have become a major source of their
• 16:23
  income. When looking at the best way to
• 16:25
  show up on social media to foster these parasocial
• 16:27
  relationships that could lead to lucrative brand deals, they
• 16:30
  noted an optimum when around 60% of a celebrity's post showed
• 16:35
  private moments. From their sample, they found
• 16:38
  that most celebrities post a mean share of 37% private posts,
• 16:42
  which they say indicates that most celebrities still share too
• 16:46
  much content related to their professional careers.
• 16:49
  So it's clear that giving fans access to their their personal
• 16:52
  lives via social media is a strategy that a lot of
• 16:55
  celebrities, particularly younger celebrities, adopt to
• 16:58
  build an engaged fan base that will ultimately ensure their
• 17:02
  professional success as well as secure their financial success.
• 17:05
  But this strategy doesn't come without its consequences.
• 17:09
  While social media gives celebrities more control over
• 17:12
  what they share about themselves, it also commodifies
• 17:14
  their personal life like never before.
• 17:17
  Over the years, many influencers and celebrities have spoken out
• 17:20
  about how giving fans increased access to their lives via social
• 17:24
  media takes a toll on their mental and physical health.
• 17:27
  Before social media, as I mentioned earlier, celebrities
• 17:30
  showed their fans glimpses of their personal lives through
• 17:33
  sometimes staged paparazzi shoots and magazine or talk show
• 17:37
  interviews. While paparazzi culture was
• 17:39
  undoubtedly out of control during this era, the celebrities
• 17:42
  energy exchange was with the system or the broader
• 17:46
  organization of Hollywood, not with their fans directly.
• 17:49
  There was still a boundary between the and their fandom.
• 17:53
  Fans did not expect celebrities to be in the public eye all the
• 17:56
  time. They did not expect to see their
• 17:58
  favorite artist, actress, or socialite as frequently.
• 18:01
  Nor did they expect to interact with them really ever, unless
• 18:05
  the fan had paid money to see them at some type of event or
• 18:08
  performance. Social media has completely
• 18:10
  flipped this on its head over the past decade.
• 18:13
  Celebrities have been expected to actively promote their own
• 18:16
  personal brand on social media year round.
• 18:19
  Otherwise they risk losing relevance online and and thus
• 18:22
  income opportunities. And when you consider the scale
• 18:25
  of some of these personal brands, it's no wonder that
• 18:28
  being expected to perform for fans on social media day in and
• 18:31
  day out, where every single post ignites a wave of feedback from
• 18:35
  millions of random people online, could be taxing on a
• 18:39
  stars mental and physical health.
• 18:41
  Take Selena Gomez for example. Since rising to fame as a child
• 18:45
  actress, Selena has been very open about her mental health
• 18:48
  struggles. In 2016, Selena suddenly pulled
• 18:52
  out of her worldwide revival tour, citing anxiety and
• 18:55
  depression due to health issues. In April 2020, she revealed she
• 18:59
  had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
• 19:01
  She later told Rolling Stone she suffered with suicidal ideation
• 19:05
  and had been to four treatment centers.
• 19:07
  In 2022, her documentary My Mind and Me was released, Which
• 19:11
  documented her mental health journey over six years.
• 19:14
  Through all of this, Selena has not shield away from discussing
• 19:17
  the impact that social media specifically has played on her
• 19:21
  mental state. As journalist Lucy Feldman wrote
• 19:24
  for Time magazine in a May 2024 profile of the Star Quote, Gomez
• 19:29
  often laments the impact of social media on her own health
• 19:32
  and encourages others to get offline.
• 19:34
  She has declared at least five times since 2018 that she's
• 19:38
  taking a break from Instagram, where her current follower count
• 19:41
  is 400, 127 million. An assistant maintained her
• 19:44
  accounts for four years. She's back to posting most of
• 19:47
  her content herself now, which includes promo for Rare Beauty
• 19:50
  and her film and TV projects. But she tries not to linger on
• 19:53
  the apps quote. I know what people can do to
• 19:56
  people I love, Selena told Feldman.
• 19:58
  My own fans who I adore and feel like have shaped who I am, will
• 20:02
  say the most hurtful things to me about how I live my life.
• 20:06
  Other stars have echoed similar sentiments, like the Demilio
• 20:09
  sisters, who have been too of ticked.
• 20:11
  Most followed creators for years.
• 20:14
  While not traditional celebrities in relation to who
• 20:17
  we've discussed so far in this episode, the Demilios can be
• 20:20
  seen as a cautionary tale for what can happen to public
• 20:23
  figures when showing up online is their primary key to
• 20:26
  relevance. Charlie Demilio became famous
• 20:28
  practically overnight after going viral on TikTok in 2019.
• 20:32
  Her sister Dixie made an account after Charlie hit 1,000,000
• 20:36
  followers. Together, the sisters amassed
• 20:38
  hundreds of millions of social media followers within 18 months
• 20:42
  of Charlie's first viral video. Given their massive influence,
• 20:45
  Charlie and Dixie were tapped for tons of projects right away,
• 20:48
  including a Kardashian Ask reality show about their family
• 20:52
  called The Demilio Show. When Season 1 of The Demilio
• 20:55
  Show aired in 2021, fans were shocked to see just how poorly
• 20:59
  Charlie and Dixie were really doing.
• 21:02
  Quote T pages and negative comments and checking who's
• 21:04
  talking about me every day has a big part of my anxiety.
• 21:08
  Dixie shared in the premiere. I do try to hide those feelings
• 21:11
  by putting out a strong face, but I do get very upset.
• 21:14
  The majority of the season focused on the sisters
• 21:16
  deteriorating mental health due to their social media fame.
• 21:20
  In one scene, Dixie had a full blown meltdown as she screamed
• 21:24
  through gasps of air with tears streaming down her face.
• 21:27
  Everyone. Just picks apart every single
• 21:29
  thing I say and do in the way I look.
• 21:32
  I went to the gym like. She later said it's hard to get
• 21:39
  past feelings of wanting to die because of how mean people can
• 21:43
  be online. Getting through the moments of
• 21:48
  Everyone hates me and I want to die is challenging.
• 21:54
  One year after the first season aired, Charlie opened up about
• 21:57
  her own mental health journey, telling People magazine in 2022
• 22:00
  that she had to stop looking at social media comments.
• 22:03
  Quote, for me specifically, I don't know about everybody else,
• 22:06
  but I don't really look at that stuff anymore, Charlie said.
• 22:09
  Obviously every day is different and sometimes we're going to get
• 22:12
  down and upset, but I think it's definitely to a less extreme,
• 22:15
  but we also see that on social media, how it affected us in
• 22:18
  real time. She said in the years since that
• 22:21
  interview, both Charlie and Dixie have pulled back from
• 22:24
  social media even more, posting much less frequently and rarely
• 22:28
  ever engaging with their fans in the comments.
• 22:30
  Chapel Roan, the star on everyone's lips these days,
• 22:34
  seems to be facing a similar dilemma.
• 22:36
  Should she continue using social media as a vessel to communicate
• 22:39
  with fans, or should she use it for strictly professional
• 22:43
  purposes? As a Gen.
• 22:45
  Z pop *, Chapel has used TikTok to promote her music and shared
• 22:48
  tidbits of her personal life over the years.
• 22:51
  However, as her star has risen in recent months, the scrutiny
• 22:54
  that comes with posting authentically online is becoming
• 22:57
  too much. After posting several videos
• 23:00
  where she expressed feeling frustrated with how audiences
• 23:02
  behave toward her, misunderstand her, and twist her words, Chapel
• 23:06
  announced in September that she would be taking some time off as
• 23:10
  everything had just become too overwhelming.
• 23:12
  Just before this announcement, Chapel told The Face that she
• 23:15
  was thinking about quitting the music industry due to harassment
• 23:18
  from fans. Quote this, industry and
• 23:21
  artistry fucking thrive on mental illness, burnout,
• 23:24
  overworking yourself, overextending yourself, not
• 23:27
  sleeping. You get bigger the more
• 23:29
  unhealthy you are. Isn't that so fucked up?
• 23:31
  The ambition is how do I not hate myself, my job, my life and
• 23:35
  do this? Because right now it's not
• 23:37
  working. I'm just scrambling to try to
• 23:39
  feel healthy. Charli XCX, Ariana Grande, and
• 23:42
  Doja Cat are all pop stars who have also called out their own
• 23:45
  fans for entitled behavior. Lately.
• 23:47
  Social media and the access it has granted fans is like a lose
• 23:51
  lose feedback loop for the celebrity.
• 23:54
  Hollywood's expectations of celebrities to build their fan
• 23:57
  bases and personal brands online fuels fan expectations that
• 24:01
  these celebrities should always be available to us, even when
• 24:04
  they aren't actively promoting a professional project.
• 24:07
  In turn, these fan expectations fuel what Hollywood expects from
• 24:11
  the celebrity, requiring them to frequently show up online and
• 24:14
  interact with their audience. Unfortunately, this expectation
• 24:17
  that celebrities should be accessible to their fans 24/7
• 24:21
  also extends beyond social media.
• 24:23
  In that same interview with The Face, Chapel detailed a recent
• 24:26
  experience she had at the airport.
• 24:28
  Quote, I get out of the car, it's 5:30 in the morning and
• 24:31
  there's two guys waiting with a bunch of posters and shit for me
• 24:34
  to sign. I know they're not fans.
• 24:36
  I said no. I was like, I don't sign
• 24:38
  anything at the airport, I'm sorry.
• 24:39
  One of them follows me to the TSA line, starts yelling at me
• 24:43
  and everyone just turns and looks.
• 24:44
  He's like, you should really humble yourself.
• 24:46
  Do you know where you are right now?
• 24:48
  Don't forget where you came from.
• 24:50
  I'm just like, what the fuck is going on?
• 24:51
  I told myself if this ever gets dangerous, I might quit.
• 24:55
  It's dangerous now and I'm still going, but that part is not what
• 24:59
  I signed up for. Chapel's openness about her
• 25:01
  experience with fame has been highly debated in recent weeks.
• 25:05
  Many people online are proud of the 26 year old for setting
• 25:08
  boundaries and speaking out against a system that has
• 25:11
  exploited and commodified young women for decades.
• 25:14
  Quote Really. The anger at Rome reflects our
• 25:16
  own anxieties, writes Lewis Staples for Harper's Bazaar.
• 25:19
  Fame is probably the only thing more idealized in Western
• 25:23
  culture than money, and now that the influencer era has
• 25:25
  democratized fame more than ever, being famous for being
• 25:28
  yourself feels tantalizingly within reach for anyone who has
• 25:32
  a smartphone. Maybe this makes some of us even
• 25:34
  more angry with Rome. We don't know her or what her
• 25:37
  experiences are, but we do know that she seems ungrateful for
• 25:41
  something we've been programmed to covet above all else.
• 25:44
  Not only is she questioning our value system, she's also
• 25:47
  shattering our fantasy. Others, on the other hand, feel
• 25:50
  like Chapel's experiences are just part of the deal when you
• 25:53
  chase fame. And while there's no denying
• 25:55
  that celebrities are afforded a lifestyle that almost none of us
• 25:59
  will ever achieve, and there's also no denying that any job
• 26:02
  that pays millions of dollars a year will be incredibly
• 26:05
  demanding with little personal time off.
• 26:08
  The through line in so many celebrity gripes is not the job
• 26:11
  itself, but the nonstop 24/7 online feedback and fan
• 26:16
  interaction that they're expected to partake in.
• 26:19
  And there's only so much feedback that a single person
• 26:21
  can process before they burn out and shut down, which is what
• 26:24
  leads to so many of our favorite celebrities to pull back from
• 26:27
  social media completely. Taylor Swift is perhaps one of
• 26:31
  the most extreme examples of this.
• 26:33
  Before becoming arguably the most famous pop star in the
• 26:36
  world, Taylor was an aspiring artist who built her fandom
• 26:39
  online. In 2005, Taylor joined Myspace
• 26:43
  one day before her then label Big Machine Records was
• 26:46
  inaugurated. Much like budding artists are
• 26:48
  expected to do today, Taylor used social media like Tumblr
• 26:51
  and Myspace to market her music and connect with listeners.
• 26:55
  Scott Borchetta, the founder of Big Machine, used her popularity
• 26:58
  online to convince country radio stations to play her music.
• 27:02
  Journalist Laura Kelly for The Atlantic Daily wrote that Taylor
• 27:05
  understood quote the power of the group experience where she
• 27:09
  put herself in the same figurative friendship group as
• 27:11
  her fans. To build that parasocial
• 27:13
  relationship, she would use social media to identify super
• 27:17
  fans and send them gifts, reply to them, hand select them for
• 27:21
  meet and greets. And in the early days, Taylor
• 27:23
  would also stop talk them on social media, which her fans
• 27:26
  dubbed Taylor King. Of course, she also used social
• 27:30
  media to drop Easter eggs and build an entire universe filled
• 27:33
  with lore that strengthened the Swifty fan base.
• 27:36
  Over the years, however, Taylor's relationship with
• 27:38
  social media and fame has changed.
• 27:41
  She's noticeably pulled back on posting content about her
• 27:44
  personal life and rarely interacts, at least publicly,
• 27:47
  with her fandom online, bar a TikTok like or comment here and
• 27:51
  there. She's also written many lyrics,
• 27:53
  especially in recent years, speaking to the golden handcuffs
• 27:56
  of fame and success and how these have driven her mad.
• 27:59
  Now, this shift in Taylor's social media behavior was
• 28:02
  inevitable for a few reasons. As Taylor's fan base grew and
• 28:05
  became increasingly devoted, she didn't need to be as accessible
• 28:08
  to fans. Plus, her safety would have also
• 28:11
  become an even bigger concern. Her rising fame also coincided
• 28:15
  with her growing up and with that possibly gaining
• 28:18
  perspective on the importance of privacy, especially as she
• 28:21
  navigated serious relationships and bigger career moments.
• 28:24
  But one of the biggest catalysts for this shift in Taylor's
• 28:28
  social media behavior was her 2016 quote UN quote cancellation
• 28:33
  when Kim Kardashian and Kanye West leaked that notorious
• 28:37
  private phone call between Taylor and Kanye.
• 28:40
  In leaking this, they insinuated that Taylor's public underdog
• 28:43
  persona was an act. During that time, it felt like
• 28:46
  the entire Internet, including some of her most die hard fans,
• 28:50
  turned on Taylor. Her social media was flooded
• 28:53
  with snake emojis and she was not heard from or seen for an
• 28:56
  entire year. When she returned to promote her
• 28:59
  Reputation album, she had wiped her accounts clean, marking a
• 29:03
  turn in her relationship with social media and online fan
• 29:06
  interaction. We saw echoes of the same
• 29:09
  narrative in 2022 after Selena Gomez's My Mind in Me
• 29:13
  documentary was released, and now we're seeing the story arc
• 29:16
  again in 2024 with Chapel Rome. The public reaches a breaking
• 29:21
  point with these women at their apex, quick to turn on the pop
• 29:24
  when they step outside the boundaries of their careful and
• 29:27
  curated public images and show a more frank side of the celebrity
• 29:31
  experience. And that's just it.
• 29:33
  The celebrities that we form parasocial relationships with
• 29:37
  really are just curated personal brands that have been served to
• 29:40
  us with an end goal to sell more music, to sell more concert
• 29:43
  tickets, and to secure more brand deals.
• 29:46
  That's not to say that their art isn't impactful, their music
• 29:49
  isn't true, or that elements of this personal brand don't
• 29:52
  reflect who the celebrity is at their core.
• 29:55
  But as social media, particularly TikTok, has granted
• 29:58
  us unprecedented access to our favorite stars, this access has
• 30:02
  strengthened our parasocial relationships and convinced us
• 30:05
  that we, the fans, know these people, their behaviors, and
• 30:09
  their beliefs better than they know themselves.
• 30:13
  Infinite Scroll is a podcast produced, presented, researched
• 30:16
  and written by me, Lauren Meissner for Centennial World.
• 30:19
  This episode was researched and Co written by Annabelle Ben
• 30:22
  David. Editing is by Dan Fennec.
• 30:25
  Thank you guys so much for listening.
• 30:26
  I love you guys and I will talk to you next week.
• 30:29
  Bye.