Now, we are all human and understand the appeal of celebrity culture. I know I am not alone in spending long hours scrolling TikTok watching interview clips, Met Gala outfit critiques and celebrity feud breakdowns. But I think where this gets tricky is when the internet takes the fun of discussing these public figures and lets it intertwine with more consequential or heavy matters.
A recent example of this was The Great Blake Lively Condemnation of 2024. For those of us who don’t know, Blake Lively starred in a movie this year called It Ends with Us. This movie features domestic violence, an extremely sensitive subject that should not be treated lightly. However, during the press tour for this movie, Lively began to ruffle feathers as she appeared to not take this content seriously enough. Many accused her of using the movie release as an opportunity to promote her own personal projects, such as her new haircare products. This article from Entertainment Weekly goes into further detail about this issue. Another common critique was Lively’s promotional attitude of, “Wear florals and see this movie with your best gal pals!”, which is a pretty off–putting juxtaposition to the film’s serious content.Â
Beyond these complaints, the internetjustappeared to grow annoyed with Lively. The public’s attitude towards her seemed to sway completely and a strong distaste for the star began to brew. Co-Stars, such as the movie’s writer and director, Justin Baldoni, hinted at tension on-set. Interview clips surfaced of Lively being rude, and tweets circulated about how irritating her marriage to Ryan Reynolds is.Â
Blake Lively’s response to the backlash was to post a story on Instagram “advocating for domestic violence victims and providing resources for help”. After she did this, the criticisms continued, saying it was “too late” and she was only posting these resources to “gain back public favour”.
Some of these complaints against Blake Lively are very valid, but this part of being a celebrity. This article is not written to defend the actress or to say that anyone is wrong to be annoyed or angry with her. However, I am willing to bet that many of us choosing to discuss this never checked out the information Lively shared about the serious topic we are getting so angry at her for disrespecting. I certainly didn’t. I’ll go one step further: I didn’t even see the movie! But here I am, writing an article. And spending hours consuming videos and tweets about how ignorant Blake is, or how she is taking over the movie’s promotion, when it should be focused on its important subject matter.
It is easy for me to watch people online talk about how despicable a celebrity is. And it is fun. It is not as entertaining to be well-educated and researched on serious subject matter. So, I personally have criticized the ignorant behaviour of celebrities online and thought: “Well done, good job, you have done something to participate in an important conversation”. However, the central topics of all of these discussions are celebrities. The individuals. I have spent hours online getting so angry at Lively for her disrespect of such a serious topic, when I could have spent time doing something, anything, to educate myself on the topic. I know no more about domestic abuse than I did before this controversy happened. The entire online conversation, as much as we can pretend it was about protecting the sanctity of sensitive conversations, was about Blake Lively. This entire article has been about Blake Lively. When I think about that, my main critique of the actress being that she didn’t take such an important topic seriously and upstaged it, seems extremely hypocritical.
There are many things to blame for this phenomenon. Like I said, I personally find discussing individual people and my opinion on them incredibly fun. I love to gossip and also talk with people who have the same opinion as me, especially when it is a strong or outraged opinion. Of course, the internet is definitely no help. It is no secret that it feeds into these conversations and popular culture strongly overpowers any information of substance on many social media sites. But I am going to try to remember that pop culture is simply that: gossip and fun popular discourse about public figures. When that discussion begins to involve serious subject matters, it does not take the conversation out of the realm of celebrity gossip and into the realm of serious discourse. It is still celebrity gossip, just celebrity gossip that should be treated more carefully. If I want to spend time actually educating myself on or seriously discussing an important topic, the best space to do it is one that leaves pop stars out of the conversation entirely.Â