#KayJay2030
#YEEZY2020
At least, that’s the first trend we saw. Now? It’s all about #OPRAH2020. It wasn’t so long ago that we learned the celebrity president could become a reality. We’ve always looked up to the celebrity opinion. My first glimpse of the celebrity “truth” was the People magazine I picked up at the tender age of 10 while I was grocery shopping with my mom.
Britney Spears’ favourite vegetables are zucchinis?! Mine too! Kim Kardashian loves pink lipstick? Wow, maybe I should go buy some. For the record, I have no idea if those facts are actually accurate, but you get the point. Celebrities have influence. As if celebrities are some different breed of human that we strive to be, we find ourselves wanting to eat what they eat, wear what they wear, and some may even go as far as believing anything and everything they believe. I feel like I got the long end of the stick given that my parents raised me to pay attention to school and music instead of celebrity gossip, so I was happy just doing me. But, I digress.
What’s more important, is my occurrence with that magazine was back when an interview with a celebrity was published once a month, and we had to wait until the next monthly issue to get our next fix of celebrity opinion. Or, we had to turn on our televisions and tune into MTV. Or, we had to fire up our mediocrely fast computers to go read the latest gossip piece on the Internet. My point is, it’s now 2018. Behold: the smartphone and social media.
We’re now constantly exposed to the celebrity opinion. We follow celebrities on every social media platform we can. We like their pages on Facebook, we look at their pictures on Instagram, and we read their tweets on Twitter. Celebrities can instantaneously tell us how they’re feeling about something, and it becomes even more influential knowing that it’s coming from the celebrity themselves. Of course, they have PR specialists and social media managers, but to the public, it’s coming from their personal account. To the consumer, it’s a first-hand, instantaneous, intimate conversation. I think that’s why the post-truth world has become such a reality. We feel like we’re friends with the celebrity since they’re giving us a first-hand look into their life through their social accounts. What do we do with our friends? We share common values and beliefs that influence us. Social media has made it so easy to be in a filter bubble — we follow who we want to follow, which is essentially who we agree with, or who we like. If someone says something we don’t like? Easy. Unfollow them.
I’m not a huge follower of Taylor Swift myself. Could she burst filter bubbles? I’m not so sure. Taylor Swift has a very large fanbase (106m just on Instagram), but it’s a very particular one. A lot of people I’ve met either love or strongly dislike her, and there’s no in-between. In my eyes, it’s likely that if you’re not a Taylor Swift fan based on what she’s done or posted already, you probably won’t turn into one — unless her whole persona and brand go through an entire remodel. But, since the bulk of an artist’s career is spent on building their persona, my guess is that it’s unlikely.
However, let’s shift the lens to some celebrities I think CAN burst filter bubbles, and I’ll use something pretty current to shed some light on it. The #MeToo movement has recently blown up with people sharing their stories and experiences with sexual assault. Focusing on the entertainment industry, there have been a slew of celebrities speaking up about their stories, and some pretty influential ones at that. Take Oprah’s speech at the 2018 Golden Globes; the speech that started the hashtag #Oprah2020. Oprah’s already an influential person, but she had probably been outside of some people’s filter bubbles prior to making that speech. Take a highly influential — and respected — celebrity, a clear opinion on a currently powerful topic, and I think you have the recipe for a bursted filter bubble. As TMZ notices, it was when she mentioned #MeToo that everyone got on their feet. I mean, she probably would have gotten a standing ovation anyways, but her statement on a hot topic at a huge event, covered by probably every major media outlet on the planet got the attention of millions. Let’s not even start at all of the celebrity messages that were delivered at yesterday’s Grammys. What helps it even more is the power that social media has to carry on a conversation well after the event has taken place. Through hashtags, users start an online movement and continue interacting with each other way after the initial celebrity event, but that celebrity and their action remains a central monument in social media. Take celebrities from different disciplines coming together for a cause, and that has even more power to burst filter bubbles. Adele’s post from the women’s march? I love Adele. Did I pay much attention to the women’s march before? Not particularly, but I do pay more attention now because of this post.
Because I like Adele, I’ve now been exposed to a new topic that I hadn’t paid much attention to before; something I can now share with a new online community. Conversely, maybe someone was all about the women’s march and didn’t know who Adele was. Now, they probably do. Celebrities post pictures, videos, personal notes, and captions to tell us about their lives. We love them, so we believe them. More often than not, the celebrities in the filter bubbles we’ve created for ourselves reinforce our opinion. Sometimes, they challenge it and we learn something new. Sometimes, we take that new information and form a new opinion on an issue that we didn’t have before. Our filter bubble bursts. Other times, it’s simple. We choose to unfollow them, and we stay tucked inside the same filter bubble we started with. Social media makes it easy: all it takes is the click of one button.
Maybe someone will be faced by the same decision as they lurk my Instagram profile in the future. It’s my first blog post, so I might as well take the opportunity to introduce myself as a musician. Is my goal to be this massive mega-celebrity? No. Decent enough following of fans who like my music? Yes. As an artist, I’m Kay Jay. Hip-hop enthusiast, R&B aficionado, beat tickler and mic hugger.
And, who knows — at the rate things are going, maybe even Prime Minister of Canada one day. #KayJay2030
