Nwanne Eke
Viewpoints Editor
For my first edition as a Viewpoints Editor I wrote about “Love Island” and the parasocial relationships viewers formed with the Islanders. In light of Klay Thompson’s immense fumble I thought I’d revisit the subject.
It would be an understatement to call me chronically online. As a true internet native, I’ve had a Twitter account (I’m sorry I’m not calling it X) since 2014. I’ve seen my fair share of internet movements, memes and iconic pop culture moments. While I do enjoy light-hearted drama and gossip — though I prefer the term “oral storytelling” — the way people get parasocial about celebrities has never computed with me. Inasmuch as I’ve been an active participant and member of several fandoms (who remembers when EXO had twelve members?) I’ve never once thought I genuinely knew these people to be able to make comments about their true characters.
Celebrities no longer have the allure that they used to, and I’m blaming both celebrities and fans. Being a celebrity used to be synonymous with being an influencer. For those who’ve played “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood,” you may be familiar with the letter ranking system of fame: A-list, B-list and so on. Now, we’ve created an entirely new occupation of “influencer” because of social media. Previously these nugus would’ve just been C-list or D-list celebrities. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I miss the old age of paparazzi-style news reporting like TMZ and live studio audience daytime talk-shows like “The Wendy Williams Show.” Social media used to be for communication with friends and family we may not see often to share infrequent updates about our lives. Now these updates come entirely too often –– to all my Linkedin warriors: please stop posting every week.
With the advent of stories, once limited to Snapchat but now a feature of almost every social media platform, celebrities and commonfolk alike are updating everyone on their every move in real time. This excessive posting and constant awareness of what we’re all doing opens ourselves up to unsolicited commentary on the ways we choose to live our lives. By seeing every waking moment of their faves’ lives, fans start to believe they actually know and are experiencing their lives with them. Podcasts have made this even worse; now we have meat-riders like DJ Akademiks throat-goating their faves as if it actually impacts their lives. Klay isn’t gonna date you next, dude.
We all need to know a little bit less about each other. With that being said, this strange unwillingness to accept that if you post publicly people are going to comment is ridiculous. If you don’t want to see people’s opinions then just don’t post. BUT also remember it can be #degafcoffee when they comment. In the words of @flylikeadove on Tiktok, “Hey, so it actually only has to make sense to me for me to do it and I don’t feel like explaining it to anyone else.”