It’s no secret that celebrities have transfixed the minds of the media and fans for decades, but it is also known that many publications and people have taken their love for a celebrity too far. Celebrities, because of their profession, are used to sharing more personal aspects of their lives with fans and on social media platforms. Unfortunately, that has also inherently caused many of their followers to feel entitled to the celebrities’ personal lives. Even internet celebrities (such as YouTube and TikTok creators) are subjugated by the parasocial relationships that they build with their followers.
Taylor Swift is a huge example of a famous person being criticized and speculated by her followers. Throughout her entire career, every public relationship Swift has had has been picked apart and watched closely by the media. Many people also condemn the amount of romantic relationships the singer has been in and even go as far as to say that the only songs she ever writes are about those past partners.
Looking past Swift’s former relationships, the media and her fans have been speculating on her sexuality for a few years, and questioning whether she is or isn’t a lesbian or bisexual woman. With the announcement of Taylor Swift’s new album, Midnights, many of her fans have amped up their speculations on Swift’s sexuality. Many of these fans refer to themselves as “Gaylors.” Taylor Swift is known for her expertise in song-writing and many people enjoy her music because of her capacity to write very emotional lyrics that they can relate to. It is this same way that many of her queer fans search within her lyrics to find indications of her queer identity, regardless of if she actually is part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Though there is nothing wrong with relating to a musician’s lyrics, relating to them and forcing an identity on said musician (that they may not have or be ready to share publicly) are two very different things. These sorts of speculations can be very harmful to a person’s self-esteem and confidence, especially if the person in question is actually a part of the queer community and not ready to come out.
Whether or not Taylor Swift is a part of the LGBTQIA+ community is not something that anyone should be publicly hypothesizing about. It can be very damaging to speculate on these highly personal things, regardless of if they are famous or not. In this case, it’s almost as if speculators are forcing Swift to come out, which is a wrong thing to do in of itself.
Though Taylor Swift is a very popular demonstration of the media disparaging a celebrity, she is sadly not the only musician to have their personal life and relationships be criticized and scrutinized by the media. Another very famous singer, Ariana Grande, faced significant backlash after the very tragic passing of Mac Miller. Grande and Miller had dated from August 2016 to May of 2018 before they announced their split. At the time, it wasn’t seen as that big of a deal—outside of the fact that many of their fans enjoyed their relationship—until late May of 2018, when Grande revealed to the world that she and comedian Pete Davidson had begun dating.
Shortly after this, Ariana Grande released the tracklist for her new album Sweetener, with one of said tracks being named after Pete Davidson. This was when the rumors that Grande had cheated on Miller really started to build up steam. Many of her own fans were accusing her of cheating, but the singer shut down these rumors by replying to fans, “I didn’t but go off.”
From what the public was seeing, everything seemed to be going fine in Grande’s relationship and life; her and Davidson had even gotten engaged in mid-June. Then, the devastating news of Mac Miller’s death from drug overdose broke on September 7, 2018. The internet, consumed by their grief of losing such a talented and dearly loved young musician, started to blame Ariana Grande for Miller’s death. Comments on all forms of Grande’s social media came flooding in, saying that she was to blame for Miller’s death because she was the one that ended their relationship (supposedly because of Miller’s struggle with addiction). The comments and tweets got so bad that Grande felt she had to disable comments on her Instagram. Many people thought that it was heartless of her to leave Miller and then go and date Pete Davidson so soon after, but it is also key to remember that none of these spectators (or supposed fans) actually personally knew any of the people involved in this situation. Just because Grande allegedly broke things off with Miller and then moved on and began dating someone else, doesn’t mean that she is to blame for Miller’s death. He was grieving and the world jumped on her and accused her of being the reason a person she cared for deeply had died.
It is situations like these that demonstrate how so many people think that, just because they follow or enjoy certain celebrities’ work, they are somehow personally connected to them and know what goes on in their personal lives, behind closed doors. Someone being famous doesn’t make them any less of a human, that is entitled to have their personal life kept out of the media. Many things go on in relationships that people don’t want to have exposed to the public. Relationships are private, and no one wants to have millions of strangers giving their opinions on matters that don’t concern them.