I’m sure most of you have been keeping up, or have at least heard about, all of the quick-rising stars of TikTok. From Charli D’Amelio to Alix Earle, pretty much all TikTok users played a part in giving them fame. So why are we also the ones trying to crush their fame and “cancel” them out of the public eye?Â
Most people have plenty of criticisms about the majority of the celebrities that exist, but what most don’t realize is that they were also the ones who gave them the power of fame in the first place. One of the most commonly used phrases I see, especially on TikTok, is that the celebrity in question “has no talent.” Now, it should be noted that sometimes these people are not entirely wrong. A lot of times people become famous for no reason off of random little posts on their social media accounts. Regardless of talent, though, fame is being handed out by society and the things they choose to interact with, meaning that the same group awarding that fame is the same group taking it away, often from the same person.
Easily, the most relevant example of this is the entirety of Charli D’Amelio’s career. Charli became famous a few years back by posting a few decently easy viral dances on Tik Tok. All of her newfound fans, and even non-fans, considered her to be all the rage. People were reposting her, recreating her videos, making fan pages and edits of her and just entirely obsessing over her until she eventually became the most recognized media influencer of the time. Anyone and everyone who had Tik Tok at the time basically made her the “It” Girl. Once she finally reached the peak of her career, her comments were flooded with confusion as to why she was even famous in the first place. People constantly called her ugly, said her videos weren’t cool or interesting and that she had no talent outside of the same few TikTok dance moves she did all the time. It’s almost as if the intention to build her up and give her the “hype” of the time was just to end up ripping her entire career apart.Â
This phenomenon is seen all throughout different celebrities in pop culture, but why is that? So many people like to blame one’s fame on being a “nepotism baby,” but if that was the case, why couldn’t they ignore the posts and drama from someone that they dislike? It’s because of something called celebrity worship syndrome. Celebrity worship is “an obsessive-addictive disorder where an individual becomes overly involved and interested with the details of the personal life of a celebrity.” Modern psychology proves to us that people tend to become invested in the lives and situations that they desire for themselves. Human nature shows us that people also tend to sabotage situations that they can’t have for themselves. These two things grouped together can offer an explanation for why society tends to feel the need to focus on the negatives surrounding a celebrity, whether they liked or disliked them previously. The obsession with people who have gained tons of fame, especially when it happens overnight, oftentimes turns into jealousy, which then eventually turns into hatred toward that person.
This idea is really interesting to me because most of the time when I see a celebrity get “canceled,” it’s for something that the average person would likely jump at the opportunity to do if they had the chance. It’s not a secret that a majority of celebrities with money have private keys and overspend on Gucci and Prada and extravagant vacations. Don’t get me wrong, I completely believe that most of the money that they spend could be used for much more meaningful and world-changing things, but I also believe that given the chance, 99 percent of the people who have criticisms about that would do the same thing.Â
In regards to the most recent celebrity drama situation with Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber, most people have been defending Selena while calling Hailey and her friends mean girls. Although it’s great that Selena is being shown all of this love, it’s also a little bit hypocritical. About two weeks ago, when all of the drama was just starting to unfold, Selena posted a video saying she wished she was as pretty as Bella Hadid and people criticized her for it, saying she was attention-seeking (examples shown in the post and comments below).Â
I personally think that celebrities are basically turning into micro trends. They’re gaining and losing fame just as fast as the next big SHEIN outfit is these days. The quick switch about the feelings toward Selena Gomez just proves how badly people need something and someone to hate at all times. Society has basically turned pop culture and its celebrities into a zoo, based on the trends we’ve seen so far, it’s only going to get worse.
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