By Amy Rudolph
Elm Staff Writer
In the society that we live in today, many public figures read like an open book. Celebrities, athletes, politicians, and others in the public eye share so much of their lives with us, to the point that fans and viewers may feel as though they know them personally.
This is great for fostering good relationships with supporters, but after a while it is easy to forget that they are real people, and not just characters on our computer and television screens.
Many people seem to forget that celebrities are actual people with actual feelings who can see what is said about them over social media. Celebrities have their privacy invaded and violated all the time, either by those who leak their personal information, photos, and things of that nature, or even take pictures of them without permission.
There are entire industries dedicated to revealing the private moments in someone’s life. If a breach of privacy happened to the average person, there would be major uproar, but when it happens to celebrities, we look and watch with amazement.
A recent instance of this came when a fan took a photo of One Direction’s Niall Horan asleep on a plane thinking that nothing bad would come of it. Horan Tweeted in response to the photo and said, “I think this s–t is unreal. I mean if you can’t sleep on a plane without people taking photos of you, what can you do?”
While the fan believed it to be a harmless photo, she forgot that Horan is a person as well, and failed to think of how he would react to seeing it. Many of Horan’s fans were outraged by this individual’s actions. Ironically, some of those outraged fans are the same ones who write fan fiction or share photos of the same nature featuring Horan and his bandmates all the time. They never think anything of it until someone calls attention to it.
Most fans who write fan fiction or generally write about their favorite figures assume that that person will never read it. A Buzzfeed contributor published an article titled, “What Does a Queer Pop Star Look Like in 2016,” an exposé toeing the line of being libelous about singer/song writer Halsey and her sexuality. Many Halsey fans were disgusted by the article which at points slammed Halsey for being bisexual and shifting between “gayness” and “straightness.” Halsey herself not only read this article, but responded to it on Twitter, and said, “well @Buzzfeed sorry I’m not gay enough for you.”
Why anyone would feel the need to speculate about someone else’s sexuality is beyond me, especially when there is the possibility that they will see it. For celebrities, this is a common occurrence, as fans and onlookers feel entitled to know intimate details about their lives. There would never be entire message boards and threads created for the sole purpose of discussing a “regular person’s” sexuality, but this happens almost constantly for celebrities.
People often forget that cat calling celebrities is still wrong. Feminists and others who believe that cat calling on the street, in personal conversation, or on the Internet is wrong sometimes turn a blind eye when expletives are shouted at celebrities in similar situations or on stage. Yelling that you want someone to perform a sexual act on you should be wrong in all situations. Writing creepy comments on a civilian’s social media post should be considered just as bad as writing it on someone like Nicki Minaj’s Facebook wall. This notion does not stop people from continuing to do it.
Some celebrities have a neutral reaction while others have expressed outrage. And then there’s Ryan Reynolds. Movie star Reynolds has turned the onslaught of creepy comments directed towards him into a new platform for comedy. One of Reynold’s fans Tweeted to him requesting that he choke her and called him, “daddy,” to which he said, “I really shouldn’t.” Most fans do not expect that their idols will ever see the comments, a notion which Ryan dispels by calling attention to the behavior. Though Reynolds responds to these fans, he in no way encourages this behavior, and instead uses these instances to show that what you say to someone may not go unnoticed. Just as no Average Joe embraces cat calling, neither do celebrities.
People are constantly being told to watch what they put online, but few rarely do. Those who post lewd and offensive things about celebrities never expect repercussions for their behavior and until celebrities like Halsey, Horan, and Reynolds carved the path for celebrities to speak out against these social infractions, people did not see reason to call for change.
So here is that call: be conscious of what you say and do, even if you think that the person will never see it. Celebrities are not in a class of their own and devoid of feelings like many seem to think. They are real people with real feelings, so treat them as such.