If you asked the average person how they were doing right now, the answer you’d get would likely be some variation on “pretty bad.”
Sure, some people wouldn’t come right out with it: you’d get some “I’m hanging in there” folks trying to put on a brave face or the eternal optimists trying to pivot the discussion to vaccine news, but our eyes have begun to give us away. Whether over zoom or behind masks, there’s a wide but tired quality to all our eyes now. It says: I have been staring into the same pale blue light for nearly eleven months and I’m not sure how much more tragedy I can endure.
And we’ve endured a lot. There’s the fully preventable loss of a year of all our lives, the near-collapse of our government, and that’s not even mentioning the 450,000 deaths. Those in power don’t care enough to close the country for two weeks, so now we’re all forced to reckon with the potential butterfly effect of simple errands like a trip to the grocery store. Many of us have lost people and been unable to find closure or even properly say goodbye. The mortality of ourselves and those we love sits heavily at the forefront of all our minds. Even when life returns to normal, there’s no way of knowing when that weight will lift. I suspect that long after this is over, the occasional cough will still make me wonder if it’s going to lead to me dying alone in a hospital hallway like so many others did.
So, with that headspace in mind, I would like you take a look at this bad post.
The question itself is deeply innocuous, even fun! There’s a pleasure in admitting that something expensive is mediocre because it reminds you that cost isn’t an inherent judge of quality. Seeing something like this from a wealthy celebrity is like Zeus coming down from Olympus to assure you that a lot of Ambrosia is actually kind of watery. If left there, this would’ve been a perfect piece of engagement bait but then came the 13,000 dollar bottle of wine and Lo! A new discourse had been created!
For Chrissy Teigen, this is something of a recurring issue. She’s experienced backlash and accusations of wealth-bragging for a number of different tweets but an emblematic incident was when she was called out for treating airpods like they’re disposable. But I’m not going to pretend that she’s a bad person. Chrissy Teigen seems like a well-meaning woman with a happy family and an unfathomable amount of wealth. For her fans, I’d imagine that this aspirational life is part of the appeal.
It’s alluring to the rest of us, of course, to think that there’s something rotten at the core of every person with money but the reality of money is that if you have too much for too long, it changes the way you see the world. It would happen to you or I if we were ever so lucky as to get the chance. I think she’s a perfectly normal person benefitting from an evil system who is detached from the lives of average people in the exact way that all wealthy people are.
Teigen is just the latest in a long, long, line of rich people who’ve drawn the internet’s ire throughout the course of the pandemic. Just this past December, David Sedaris got the same treatment for an ill-advised humor piece about how he should be able to fire any retail worker he doesn’t like. First step-daughter Ella Emhoff’s yarn-based clothing line booked her a lucrative modeling gig. Elon Musk accidentally blew up too many space ships and had to move to Texas or something. It would seem that a mass death event has finally exhausted the American people’s seemingly infinite tolerance for the antics of the rich and powerful. But for each of these incidents, there’s always a small group of people espousing the idea that mocking those in power is bad, actually.
They said not to make fun of David Sedaris because it was infringing on his free speech. Let the guy who wrote Santaland Diaries completely forget his own legacy in peace! Because obviously when wealthy people criticize something it’s free speech but when normal people have an opinion on their criticism, it’s actually censorship.
They said not to make fun of Ella Emhoff for wearing a bunch of yarn because she’s not synonymous with her step-mother, The Vice President of the United States. But, while the children of powerful people don’t choose to be in the public eye they do get to choose between Ivy League schools and careers they’ll get an automatic leg-up in.
They said not to make fun of Elon Musk because he is papa and papa will take me to MARS he told me so, please let papa blow up his rockets so that papa can make the big rocket, the one that will take me and papa to MARS.
The concept of stans is nothing new, most famous people have a couple thousand brainwashed devotees that’ll spend their entire day online going after anyone who dares look at their god with less than a toothy smile. And to some degree, they aren’t wrong to say that their deities should be allowed to post about their decadent lives. It’s true, they’re allowed to post whatever they want. But so are we. This is a level of symmetry that the wealthy have never been prepared for. I’m sure being a celebrity was easier when it was all glowing magazine profiles and fancy parties, but now the people have a way to yell at God and very few of them are passing up the opportunity to piss on the locked gates of Heaven. And while the defiance of dunking on celebrities is cathartic, it’s hard not to picture it as a form of hell unto itself. Even in mocking someone, you give them your time. Is the freedom to yell at powerful people worth what it takes from us?
As always, the simplest solution for criticism-averse celebrities and those annoyed by them would be logging off. But most of us can’t do that. We’re either required by work or social isolation to report on time and get our daily dose of discourse.
But the celebs?
They could delete their accounts today and return to a life of luxury, unbothered by anyone outside their carefully chosen inner circles. They’d live lives better than any ancient king or conqueror. But they’ll never leave. Like us, they’re addicted to getting that social media dopamine, but for the rich this addiction is particularly egregious given that their entire lifestyle already runs on the stuff. In addition to their unparalleled wealth, the modern celebrity demands not just our attention, but our adoration of their every action and opinion. They will take every moment we give them. The way most social media algorithms work these days means you cannot escape from whatever the day’s discourse (something I discussed a few weeks back) but there’s one still-reliable way to minimize the theft of your attention.
I’m telling you to block the celebs.
We could sit here and talk about whether it’s okay or not to post about having tremendous wealth. We could sift through all the different arguments and do our best to get to the real beating heart of the issue. Or you could block every person who has ever even mildly annoyed you online.
Put together a list, block their accounts, and mute their names.
Block the accounts that share them and the outlets that share news about them.
Salt your digital earth.
If the internet has any purpose at all beyond the endless generation of content for profit, it is to connect us with each other and with information, and if there is one unifying message of celebrity posting it’s that we are not one of them. It’s time to stop acting like we are.
We can’t stop them from hoarding money but we don’t have to give them our time.
Leave them with their stans. They’ll never notice we’re gone.