Maybe Don’t Tattoo Celeb Faces on Your Own Face For Attention

This should be obvious people.

This is Kelsy Karter, and on January 26th she posted the above picture to her Instagram.

Karter was a little-known singer, dedicated to bringing back rock to a new generation. One of her main inspirations: Harry Styles.

Harry Styles — if you don’t already recognize the name as the ex-boy-bander with the hair from One Direction — is a well-known singer and song-writer. He has amassed himself and immense fanbase over the years, and has become a household name across the globe.

When Karter posted this picture of herself with Styles’ face tattooed to her cheek, Harry Styles’ fans lost it to say the least. The response wasn’t, at first, categorically positive or negative. It was for the most part plain disbelief that a fan would go so far. While some admired her dedication and joked about how their own love for Harry felt challenged, others expressed that she had taken it too far.

However, many took the same route of making fun of the botched design:

Yeah, it didn’t exactly look like Styles in the first place.

Moreover, news outlets everywhere were picking up the story of the crazy-dedicated fangirl that made Styles a permanent fixture to her face. Kelsy Karter was making a name for herself, for better or for worse.

At this point the situation was fairly innocent. Nothing more than a fan gone rogue, make of that what you will. That was until things took another turn.

On January 28th, the music video for Karter’s new song “Harry” went up on YouTube. The song was dedicated to the British singer, featuring lyrics like:

“Harry, I’m gonna make you love me”

and

“I wanna take a dirty picture, send it to your mind”

This unleashed an entire other level of responses. Many Styles’ fans felt the song was invasive and creepy. Despite being a celebrity, he’s a person too, and who was she to be writing such intimate lyrics about him? The attention Karter was getting kept on ramping up.

Finally, on January 31st, after much speculation, Karter released another video. This one was titled:

“How I rocked the entire world for $300”

The tattoo, was fake.

Whether the tattoo being fake was a surprise to anyone or not, it did add another layer to the situation. Was it really fair of Kelsy to use this gag as an opportunity to gain recognition for her music?

In her video Karter explained how she was at a tough place in her life, and definitely wasn’t in the mood to write another sad song about it. She instead turned to a source off positivity in her life: Harry Styles, and wrote a song about him. After saving the song for six months, she decided to accompany its big reveal with the fake tattoo to grab more attention. And it worked.

Many fans were outraged. On top of invading Harry’s respect, she had utilized his fame to garner attention for herself. And now, any resulting effects of the stunt in regard to her career would forever be tainted by the idea that she was riding off another’s success.

Others still were undisturbed by the singer’s actions, rather paying attention to the quality of her music, not the means by which they discovered her.

So what do you think? Was the publicity stunt a good idea for an undiscovered artist looking to gain some recognition and have a little fun? Or did this fan take things too far?