It’s understandable why people are fans of celebrities. Celebrities represent a certain lifestyle, success, beauty, or entertainment that many people either aspire to achieve, or just find overall entertaining to watch. However, the idolization and obsession over celebrities has gone too far.
Some fans go so far that they create an unhealthy parasocial relationship that puts celebrities on this sort of pedestal thinking that they can do no wrong. This in turn has led to some fans that are so obsessed, if anyone disagrees with their opinion, they get aggressive. For example, say this person is a singer, if one person says they don’t like listening to their music, the fan will have an over exaggerated reaction, trying to force the person into liking that artist. This most commonly happens online, however it also happens in person in casual conversations.
The worst thing about crazy fan bases is how they believe that whatever celebrity they like can do no wrong. A prime example of this is Kanye West fans. Kanye West had been in his prime from 2001 until 2022, when he started openly making hateful comments. Many fans were disappointed by this, but some were still defending him, claiming that he was just “exercising free speech,” which is not at all an acceptable excuse for all of the anti-semitic things he said. As said in his very own song, POWER ‘No one man should have all that power,’ which is 100% correct. No one should ever be able to say those horrible things without getting punished, and thankfully, West was punished, continuing his own self-destruction. To this day, fans of West continue to support him, even through his continuous dispute with Taylor Swift.
This is quite obviously relative to the ridiculous beef between Kanye and Taylor, beginning at the 2009 VMA’s, when Kanye crashed her acceptance speech. Since then, there has been a feud between the two fanbases. Since that day at the VMA’s, West and Swift just haven’t ever set aside their differences, though there have been attempts. This has been an [ongoing] problem in the Kanye and Swift world, one side arguing that Kanye made Taylor’s career, and the other saying that Kanye and Kim Kardashian painted her as a liar, causing Swift to disappear off the media for two years. Since then, there have been little to no agreements, when really, everyone needs to just relax and realize that the things they say have absolutely no effect on the celebrities they’re attacking.
Another problem with idolizing celebrities is what the media does. When one celebrity is really big and very well talked about, the media is constantly trying to show them, so that the company can get popularity too. This causes events that have nothing to do with that celebrity, to be overtaken by them and shown off as much as possible. Even if the celebrity is well liked, after a while people who aren’t fans tend to get mad. And in turn causes anti-fans to react almost as bad as the obsessed ones.
The most recent example of this is all the drama going around with Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift has always been one of those celebrities where half of people completely idolize her, and the other half become anti-fans and do anything in their power to tear her down. Now that she has started dating Travis Kelce, any football game she attends, the media pans the camera to her any chance that they get, so that fans of her can see her reactions. On the other side of this are the anti-fans who constantly get angry about the media showing her, that they loudly voice their opinions about her by going to social media, and also have been shown booing her at the games.
Overall the weird parasocial relationships that fans create with a celebrity cause a lot of harm. Between hurting the celebrity, other fans, or promoting a celebrity who doesn’t deserve it, fans create a lot of problems. Taking a step back and realizing the harm they are causing would be an important step to keep the relationship between fans and celebrities healthy.
