Modern Celebrity Is What Happens When No One Says "No"
We once marveled at the celebrity bubble, now many of us are disgusted by it.
Kanye West had a three-hour interview with Joe Rogan this week. I didn’t watch the whole thing. Maybe in time, I will for the sake of my profession. But it didn’t take long for Mr. West to turn me off of the interview. He proclaimed that he thought he should be ”the leader of the free world,” but followed up that grand statement with...nothing of substance. The moment spoke to the limitations of usually unchecked ego when it’s actually challenged.
Kanye has previously compared himself to Leonardo Da Vinci Walt Disney, and every other revered cultural maverick. Perhaps his music and fashion impact actually puts him near the top of a 21st-century list of trendsetters — but you don’t actually say that about yourself. His affirmations are boundless to the point of self-parody, so his “leadership” comment wasn’t surprising. It’s just that his gall was magnified by an underwhelming justification. The moment marked him, once again, as galaxy-brain aestheticism.
From what I saw, the interview was low on bombast, which was almost disappointing considering the absurd context that the recording artist and fashion maven is a “Presidential candidate” enabling Donald Trump’s fascist administration. It’s hard for me to fathom someone resolving to do that but also speaking as calm and personably as he did to Rogan. Without knowledge of his current 2020 endeavors, he would’ve come off as a likable, if scatterbrained, guy. Like he was thoughtful. But so many of his recent actions say otherwise.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been shocked at all though. The temperament-to-action gulf highlights what it’s like to exist in a world where no one tells you no. The moment harkened to The Breakfast Club’s Charlamagne Tha God reflecting on talking to Def Jam executives about Kanye’s polarizing “Bound 2” video. Fans and critics were confused about why the video consisted solely of him and a topless Kim Kardashian riding a motorcycle. From what I recall, the executives essentially told Charlamagne that no one at Def Jam could tell him anything. When Kanye was a guest on the show, he explained that “I wanted to take white trash T-shirts and make it into a video...I want to show you that this is the type of imagery that's been presented to all of us. And the only difference is a black dude in the middle of it.” I wonder if he fathomed that years later, most of his actions would make him look like a self-caricature.
We once marveled at the celebrity bubble, now many of us are disgusted as we see its delusional manifestations. 2020 is a challenging time, with a global pandemic, a worldwide social justice crisis, and now a national election all weighing on society. This is a time of reflection, of asking of ourselves, and interrogating how we can be better people for ourselves and each other. None of that can happen when nobody tells you no. That’s why Kanye is “in” the election right now.
Celebrities have given us an astounding amount of examples of how insulated they are from real life. When coronavirus reached the states and quarantine started, Hollywood stars posted a curious video of them singing John Lennon’s “Imagine.” When Minnesota’s precinct was burning, and protesters were demonstrating all over the country, most Black entertainers had nothing to say but platitudes that didn’t speak to the urgency of the moment. Naomi Campbell recently expressed awareness of Nigeria’s #EndSARS movement by posting that she was “praying for a silver lining” — with a distracting photo of her in an ornate silver dress.
Even an act as simple as encouraging people to vote has become inundated with Michael B. Jordan “go vote” chest selfies and a collection of naked stars who made a pro-voting video earlier this month. Their reasoning for being naked is that they wanted to grab people’s attention in order to urge them to vote. But one would have to be living under a rock to not be aware, if not infuriated, by Trump’s restrictive policies, police brutality, and a creeping feeling that things are going to get worse before they get better in America. Somehow though, these celebrities thought their naked visage would be what woke people up to the gravity of the moment.
Nude voting advocacy is parodic yet harmless. What Kanye, Diddy, and Ice Cube are doing, however, by trying to affect policy in a manner that they aren’t at all equipped for, is dangerous. You can be self-indulgent about a lot of things, but not about salvation. They’re exemplifying the consequences of meshing activism with an entertainment world in which egotistical capitalists aren’t used to being told no.50 Cent admits he was joking about his recent pro-Trump tweets. In between filming Power series’, he must not have had the time to realize that now is not the time to give Trump any ammo to feed his followers, because neither he nor his followers care about facts.
Judgment is the major question in all these moments. “What could they be thinking?” The answer is that they weren’t. Entertainers rarely have to think critically. Celebrities do what they want, and their stans eat it up. If they mess up bad enough their following and PR team will clean it up for them. They exist in a consumerist bubble that tries its damndest to convince you that these people are infallible and all-capable because they’re rich, or attractive, or talented. Where’s the room for genuine self-reflection or accountability in that world?
That unpredictability was all good for the fodder of award shows and reality TV and gossip blogs. Some of us want watercooler conversation and an escape from the mundanities of existence. But our lives have been upended this year. The out of touch antics we used to laugh at are now a glimpse of a world of privilege that we’ll never access. That circumstance stirs resentment while we long to escape the victimhood of 2020’s hellscape. While it would have been merely onbrand to hear rapper Saweetie tell women to leave men “if he can’t buy you a Birkin bag” last year, it seems cruelly out of touch now amid mass unemployment. Most people with a desire for liberation have little patience for celebrity vapidity or their attempts to pervade deathly serious conversations with their egoism.
We’ve probably all joked at one time or another about being famous, and what we’d want to do once we got there. But it’s a scary proposition to become rich and famous. I wouldn’t want to make so much money that I fell prey to my whims, and no one on my team could tell me no. I’d be afraid to not be able to consider that I made a mistake until I was apologizing for it. Modern celebrity is antithetical to the human experience. A fruitful life depends on being challenged, self-reflecting, taking accountability, and owning limitations. Most entertainers, who employ a squadron of people dedicated to making them look good literally and figuratively, are “protected” from the very human process of self-scrutiny. For Black entertainers especially, their improbable come up makes them think there’s no mountain they can’t conquer. Their financial fortune becomes their misfortune.
Celebrity tone-deafness is juxtaposed by outspoken entertainers like Noname, Cardi B, and John Boyega, who are beloved for advocating for the people on a grassroots level. They’ve all expressed confusion with the balance between speaking their minds on social and carrying themselves like celebrities with visibility. I think we need to just let them be and appreciate them as they are. What this moment teaches us is that carrying oneself “like a celebrity” is to fall backward into the lap of luxury and lose conception of how to engage “everyday people” outside of branding. It’s to let your aspiration turn into delusion and to let financial freedom turn into existential detachment.
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Venmo: Andre-Gee
The author complains that celebrities live in an echo chamber bubble, then complains about the few who dare to leave that bubble. Can't have it both ways.
How are you writing an article on an interview you haven't watched. lol