When twitch streamers can sway elections and viral videos can turn fifteen seconds of fame into hundreds of millions of dollars, it kind of makes you wonder: who's a real "celebrity" these days? And do they matter like they used to?With fans fed up over ticket prices and endless product pushing, capital-C "celebrity" seems to be in its flop era. But is it gone for good? And, do we even want it back?Brittany gets into all of it in front of a live audience at the annual On-Air Fest in Brooklyn with Vulture's Rachel Handler and Vox senior correspondent Alex Abad-Santos. Support public media and receive ad-free listening & bonus content. Join NPR+ today.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What does celebrity mean today?
And Harrison Ford got in on the action, too.
my work make me happy. This Jeep makes me happy, even though my name is Ford.
And listen, it's already enough that Ryan Reynolds is constantly trying to sell us a budget cell service, but now Harrison Ford is selling me an all-terrain vehicle. That's just a bridge too far for me personally. But what really shocked me was the reaction to Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter tour ticket prices. This is why bell hooks call Beyoncé a terrorist. These ticket prices are an act of terrorism.
Chapter 2: How have celebrity endorsements changed?
The very first thing I should have seen come from Beyoncé after this ticket debacle is a lawsuit against Ticketmaster. You're pricing, not pricing, ma'am. After the whole ticket debacle, Beyonce went on later that week to promote her perfume on Instagram. And the comments? I did not know the hive had it in them.
But Beyonce is far from the only celebrity to sell, market, be the face of, or the face behind a product. And the way these egg prices are set up, all this product pushing is getting a bit stale, if you ask me. So when I got the opportunity to host It's Been a Minute Live. Hello, hello, everybody.
Last month at On Air Fest in Brooklyn, New York, I knew exactly who to call to get to the bottom of this. Vulture Features writer Rachel Handler.
She probably has no sense of what's going on for most of the world. I don't know how you fix that. Do you have like a proletariat like advisor? Like, I don't know. I don't know how you fix that.
and senior correspondent at Vox, Alex Abad-Santos.
I'm always about like eat the rich, but then when it comes to like Beyonce and Rihanna, I'm like, I'm a picky eater. Like, let's do a la carte.
Alex and Rachel joined me live at On Air Fest to get into the depth of celebrity culture, and if that's something we even want. But first, I had to know, what moment made them think celebrity culture had started to take a turn?
Okay, so picture this. 2017, Rihanna launches Fenty Beauty. And prior to this, Rihanna had the best Instagram. Everything was aspirational. She was going to the Met Gala. She was posting from there. And she was also on social media. She was fighting with Ciara. She was fighting with everyone. She was telling people, good luck booking that stage you speak of.
Basically, when Fenty launches, you hit this inflection point where she just, it becomes like, that's not Rihanna who's talking to me anymore. And it's just like kind of like this weird like marketing like, okay, well, there's a new highlighter. And it's like, of course, I'm happy for Rihanna. But it's just like that's where all the aspiration dies. And it just like bleeds into marketing.
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Chapter 3: What events signaled a shift in celebrity culture?
And I think since then, celebrity culture has just been degrading further because I think it's about class consciousness. I think it's about you know, solidarity. I think it's about like a developing sense of, oh my God, like not just celebrities, but the oligarchs and the billionaires now run this country.
Celebrity culture dying to me is not necessarily about like, oh, they're degrading their image or they're, they're like slumming it with Uber Eats ads. It's more about people reclaiming power and understanding that that's not aspirational, that actually like celebrity is actually harmful.
Look at that. Look at that. One of the big things I've been thinking about in terms of like why celebrities feel so tiresome, I think, to so many of us right now are that they are everywhere. We have, in some ways, it feels like unlimited access to them. I mean, they're on every channel. Yeah. Social media, commercials, interviews.
I mean, going back to these celebrities at the Super Bowl and how many of them were in commercials, some of whom I haven't seen act in a minute, right? But someone was like, just come here for six hours. We'll give you a check. And they're like, all right, I'll get up. I do kind of see this as a recession marker. I say this as somebody who is not an econ reporter. Don't come for me.
This is just... Think about this the same way you might think about astrology, okay? But I wonder, how do you think... The high level of access we have to celebrities now is kind of feeding into the moment that we're in with being disenchanted with them.
I don't even think we have a high level of access to them. I think that's an illusion. I think that's a flattening effect of social media. Now they all have Instagrams and TikToks and whatever. But it's not actual access. I think what we're missing is real access. There's sort of like. disappearance of actual access in profiles and celebrity culture reporting.
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Chapter 4: How did the pandemic affect our view of celebrities?
I think, you know, we don't have an actual understanding of what's going on in celebrities' lives because we don't actually, they're just presenting whatever they want. They're the ones who are saying, oh, this is my, you know, a day in my life, but it's not real. None of it's actually real.
But I think it's also a bigger cultural shift of everyone has all the social media you're talking about. And then I think what we saw, and I know they get piled on a lot, but with the Kardashians, it was like, this is how we perform our version of celebrity, and you can sell this, and it's marketable. And I think like...
As companies and as, like, everyone figured it out, like, everyone's like, wow, this is a really successful way to go. We will be your friend on Instagram, on social media. And I guess that line disappears of, like, is this person, like, my friend or are they a celebrity? It's like, and again, that feeds into, like, parasocial stuff that we have now.
So, like, our whole culture is kind of bent around this, I guess, imagined perception that these people are just like us and all our friends because isn't that what they've been telling us?
It's the illusion of access.
Yeah.
Yeah. That makes me think about another aspect in all this. I think with that kind of illusion of access, the way that not just even celebrities, but everyday people communicate with each other or with the masses on social media has changed.
The kind of very manicured Instagram posts that we all remember has been replaced by people literally rolling out of bed on TikTok and being like, hey, what's up? Or being like, get ready with me. Or being like, look how nasty my house is. Or-
To your point, Rachel, I think that that veneer of authenticity, whether or not it really exists, that has become a lot more valuable in how celebrities represent themselves. I think about like Chapel Roan and Dochi, like two people who have the capability of being very glammed up and having this stage persona.
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Chapter 5: Are celebrities more accessible through social media?
Yeah. And that's when you lose your mind. That's when you lose your mind.
Coming up. Can I admit something?
Yes.
I have the CC and it smells so good.
You have? Okay. You have her cleaning spray?
I have the hand wash.
More on the death of celebrity culture after the break.
I'm Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. At a time of sound bites and short attention spans, our show is all about the deep dive. We do long-form interviews with people behind the best in film, books, TV, music, and journalism. Here our guests open up about their process and their lives in ways you've never heard before. Listen to the Fresh Air podcast from NPR and WHYY.
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Chapter 6: What role does class consciousness play in celebrity culture?
Chapter 7: How do we balance authenticity and celebrity personas?
Or someone who's been profiled recently by Netflix for everything they've overcome in their business over the past four or five decades. Martha Stewart, I love the documentary. Additionally, I think some of these celebrities are trying to get us to buy stuff that doesn't even make sense online. for them to be selling. Like I think about Beyonce for a long time did not drink.
And then she came up out of nowhere and she said, I'm selling whiskey. I said, to drink with who? Is it for you? Is it for you? And you know, I've heard it's tasty. I don't know. Cause I mean, I'm not buying it. Like, like I said, I'm on a budget. This one really got me. Courtney Cox. Courtney Cox, as you all know, she played Monica on Friends.
Courtney Cox is selling hand soap, which I guess I get. Candles. Okay. Yeah. Cleaning spray? Courtney Cox cleaning spray? When was the last time you think she cleaned her bathroom was? Just a guess. Just a guess. When was the last time you think she cleaned her bathroom?
Can I admit something?
Yes.
I have the CC and it smells so good.
You have? Okay. You have her cleaning spray?
I have the hand wash.
The hand wash.
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