Two celebrity relationship scandals went viral in the past week: a musician who has been in the mainstream zeitgeist for two decades, and an internet star who rose to fame in the first class of a whole new and uncharted kind of fame.
The way the public responded illustrates the unspoken rules of what audiences expect from celebrities.
Maroon 5’s Adam Levine represents a kind of celebrity that feels so disconnected and unattainable to the ordinary person that fans don’t expect access (though many will happily take any bite of confirmation from the drama that’s given them). And Ned Fulmer of YouTube’s The Try Guys represents a new breed of internet celebrity who often don’t feel they have the luxury of detaching themselves from public opinion. The people who are demanding answers – to what should perhaps be a private situation – are the ones who built them in the first place.
“Whereas traditional celebrities are put on pedestals and flattered by a lot of us regular people, internet stars are kind of different because they’re a lot more accessible on these devices that we stare at all day and could actually be any of us,” she says dr Donna Rockwell, a clinical psychologist specializing in celebrity mental health.
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Confidence-Based vs. Awareness-Based Fame: The Psychology of Being a Fan
Fans reacted differently to the news of each star’s cheating scandal because the way they view their relationships with a celebrity like Levine versus a celebrity like Fulmer is very different.
A traditional celebrity might be famous in the sense that many people know them and realize it’s a parasocial, one-sided relationship, Rockwell notes. An online celebrity gains recognition because people “care about their opinion and trust their perspective,” according to Brad Hoos, CEO of influencer marketing agency The Outloud Group.
“If something scandalous happens to an athlete, actor or musician, it’s pissed off, but ultimately people like him because he’s a good athlete, actor or musician,” adds Hoos. “Ultimately, for an influencer, it’s trust and understanding of who they and their community are that makes them truly powerful…but the downside of breaching that trust is much more significant because (their fame) is built on trust.” , as opposed to consciousness-based.”
Of course, even the biggest A-list celebrities are people. But most stars in the entertainment industry don’t have the same communal back-and-forth with their fans that internet stars do, and therefore seem almost otherworldly to the average person.
“The lives that (legacy media) celebrities lead are so vast in comparison to the rest of us, from private planes to designer cloisters to palatial homes, that we know we’ll never achieve such opulence and wealth be able. That level of high living is definitely unattainable for us,” added Rockwell.
Those personal connections, or lack thereof, may help explain public reactions to each of these scandals: Online responses to Levine’s breakup have been overwhelmingly jokes and memes, using him as a punch line, while even casual past viewers of The Try Guys Fulmer’s situation more took personally or expressed disappointment. “For not having watched the Try boys in about 4 years I am absolutely devastated by the Ned news‘ wrote one Twitter user on Tuesday.
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What do the people in the public spotlight owe?
When a musician, film or television star finds himself in a crisis, he often has a team of professionals at his side: a publicist, a manager, a lawyer, an agent, sometimes even an additional crisis PR specialist. A social media star might have a similar number of fans (Levine and The Try Guys both have millions of followers online), but often fewer resources: maybe a manager or agent, although everyone probably knows more about branding and monetization than PR -crises.
While the content creator and influencer industry has grown exponentially in recent years, it’s important to remember that internet fame has its roots in the relationship between creator and viewer.
“Influencers have created a social community that’s clearly led by a person – or a group of people in The Try Guys’ situation – but there’s a back-and-forth and people then want to know and trust more about the person and really understand they’re part of that community,” says Hoos — which makes it all the more disappointing when an internet personality deviates from fan expectations, be it a product recommendation that clashes with the creator’s values, controversial comments that don’t align with the creator Brand they created or a relationship portrayed as more perfect than it was in real life.
Both avenues of fame are likely to persist well into the future, industry experts believe. Each type of fame has its pros and cons, and ultimately it’s up to individual stars to decide which aspects of their personal lives they’re willing to share.
“With the internet, people have the ability to let their audience go behind the scenes,” says Hoos. “As long as you are an actress or actor, musician or athlete … you can always choose to be known for that activity instead of being known for leading a community and sharing your whole self.”
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