As socialization increasingly shifts online, we are likely to form more (and more intense) parasocial bonds and see a blurring of the boundaries between the real and the parasocial. By Sohel Sarkar In 1893, when Arthur Conan Doyle shoved his fictional detective Sherlock Holmes off a cliff, fans went into public mourning, forcing the author...
Tag: celebrity culture
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When Celebrities Fake Class Solidarity To Seem “Relatable”
Celebrities often fake class solidarity, while living in a completely different reality. To see Chrissy Teigen and John Legend continuously pretend to understand the needs of lower-class Americans is beyond maddening, but not surprising. By Priyanka Bansal While many of us were curled up on the couch in fear on November 3rd, waiting for results...
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An Open Letter To Stans: We Must Divest Ourselves From Celebrity And Fight For Liberation
We are standing in the way of revolution. And we are doing so on behalf of the state, capitalism, of The Celebrity, all because they require us to. By Mack I am writing to you today as a former, self-identified member of The Navy. I followed Rihanna’s career from the very beginning. I can hum...
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Why Celebrities Are Losing Their Goddamn Minds in the Middle of a Pandemic
A pandemic like COVID-19 renders celebrity nearly useless, and the lack of fan adoration—not a pandemic—is the celebrity’s version of a global crisis. At the beginning of March, it became very clear that COVID-19 had finally reached the United States. And because this doodoo-ass country had spent the last, what, EIGHT decades chipping away at...