CHRIS GEN puts down his pipe ‘n’ slippers and examines the curious case of celebrity obsession on the internet.
This week the entire civilized world will be praying for Justin Bieber to find the strength to save his soul, put down that blunt and step away from the half-finished beer…
After a series of photographs depicting the teen heart-throb clutching a smouldering blunt managed to find their way onto the internet, some disillusioned fans turned bitter and bombarded Twitter with images of them cutting themselves under the #CutforBieber tag, claiming it was because of Justin.
Justin’s fans are known for their ‘Fatal Attraction’ style obsession with the singer. Branding themselves ‘Bieliebers’ and worshipping him as if he was some kind of musical prophet, they’re partaking in a dance as old as civilisation itself. Just ask Orpheus – the Greek musician of myth who was actually torn to pieces by some drunken women – or the Beatles, who couldn’t even hear themselves play over the screams of their teenage fans.
So celebrity-worship is nothing new. However when you add social networking into the mix, which gives fans the ability to network, share gossip, photos and find out the celebrity’s every move, things quickly get out of hand. Celebrities are bombarded with hate mail, death threats and pathetic ”follow me on Twitter” pleas from besotted fans on a daily basis.
When Taylor Swift and Harry Styles hooked up – earning themselves the ‘Haylor’ tag – all over Twitter distraught fans wailed like heartbroken-banshees while comforting each other with cyber-hugs and ‘it gets better’ messages – you’d think someone had just marched into their house, smashed up the TV and stubbed out a cigarette on Granny.
The dangers of idolizing a celebrity are fairly blatant. People emulate their behaviour especially impressionable younger teenagers. The media glamourizes the antics of celebrities; their drunken behaviour, the break-ups and the affairs. When you read about these millionaire parties and sexual escapades in magazines or tabloids it draws you in, makes the drama appealing and exciting. What you don’t get is how it feels the morning after and what the long-term effects are. Idolizing celebrities from young age gives you an impossible expectation from people you’ll meet in your day-to-day life. The amount of times I’ve heard someone compare their crush to a celebrity is unreal but that’s what we do. We measure everyone against this ‘image’ that we have in our head – match up or walk on. When said celebrity doesn’t live up to our expectations, or ‘lets us down’, we immediately feel betrayed and whatever ‘crime’ they have committed, not matter how trivial is blown way out of proportion.
In ye olde times, people would have loving friends and family ready to slap it out of them and drag them back into the real world, but these little social networking bubbles make it more difficult to distinguish between Real Life and Dream Life, Real Person and Idealized Person Who Exists Only In The Realm Of Fantasy.
Don’t even get me started on the fanfiction, once the preserve of dog-eared notebooks, now freely available and legitimised on the big bad interwebs.
If there’s any justice in the world, someone, somewhere, is writing erotic fanfiction about Tim Berners-Lee. It’s the only way to save us all.
