Friendship From a Worldwide Stage

rethinking our celebrity obsession through the lens of Christian love

This article is part of the Claritas spring 2023 issue, Love. Read the full print release here.

By Mairead Clas

I am kind of a music freak. If you see me on campus, I’ll have my AirPods in. My Spotify wrapped had almost 100,000 minutes last year. I analyze song lyrics in my free time and have a really bad habit of using them in my English essays (usually not to the amusement of my professors.) I need music like I need breathing: I have my songs for crying, songs for laughing, and songs for studying in Uris Library, songs for being in love, songs for running your heart out, songs for dreaming about fantasy worlds, songs for driving to Target. I am the girl at a concert who is screaming the words with her hands outstretched, as if she’ll somehow be able to communicate to the performer how much the lyrics mean to her––even while she is simply a speck in the crowd, washed out by the stadium lights. 

At the New Student Convocation in August of 2019, President Martha E. Pollack delivered a speech discouraging Cornellians from wearing headphones around campus. She warned them that the destructive technology can seal them off from genuine human connection. While the message ultimately alluded to a larger theme of belonging and exploration here at Cornell, it no doubt stirred a conversation that challenged the normalized practice of wearing headphones, especially for young people. [1] Thirty years ago, it may have been rare for a young person to listen to their favorite song over partaking in a conversation with a friend, but today the popularity of music has soared in prominence––fueled by new streaming platforms, the buzz of social media, and a technology-inducing pandemic. These days, the average Spotify user listens to music for 148 minutes every day, devoting time to 40 artists weekly. [2] Notably, over half of Spotify’s user base is made up of millennials and younger people. 

It is no surprise that those most well-versed in technology would be readily consuming music at a rate that even this meteoric rise in streaming services cannot keep up with. Things have changed, and teenagers find that throwing on a pair of headphones and tuning the world out is a relaxing, enjoyable distraction from the burden of real-life adversity. Music has a distinguished role in adolescent culture: I’m sure we all have at least one friend who badgers us on our opinion on the latest pick for Slope day, or raves about the release of Taylor Swift’s latest album. It isn’t just the accessibility of streaming services that has created this addictive buzz around music––it is also social media platforms that propel the obsession even farther than it could have been decades ago, when teens were burning CD’s or jamming out to Billy Joel or Madonna on hi-fi cassette decks. 

In other words, it isn’t just about the music anymore. We live in an era where fans can interact with celebrities on an intimate level––not only can they resonate with lyrics or scream their hearts out at the occasional concert, but they can watch comedic interviews on Youtube, connect with the anonymous public through internet fandoms, and comment on their favorite musician’s Instagram post and eagerly anticipate a reply. Celebrities and popular artists are well aware of the marketing advantage that a veil of authenticity can offer them, and they are more than happy to offer us the candid TikTok video or the sporadic live stream. But for us, it almost feels like we know them personally. 

This phenomenon is known as a parasocial relationship, described by University of Chicago sociologists Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl as a “seeming face-to-face relationship between spectator and performer.” [3] This sense of false intimacy is also not always unintentional: Horton and Wohl note that TV personalities and musicians often “use the mode of direct address, talking as if they were conversing personally and privately” with their fans. [3] It is no secret that the overall experience of the consumer benefits from an individualized relationship with the performer: after all, it feels good to feel special. International popstar Taylor Swift’s official Instagram announcement for her “Eras Tour” is tinged with false intimacy as she writes, “I can’t WAIT to see your gorgeous faces out there. It’s been a long time coming.” [4] Yet, the superstar implies that the faces in a stadium of 60,000 people would be visible, and while most fans were at least vaguely aware of the frivolity of the announcement, her warmhearted sentiment no doubt helped sell tickets. 

Unfortunately, there is a dark side. Harmless fandoms can quickly turn into obsessive celebrity cults where fans find themselves debating about the musician rather than the music, feeling passionately that they have a say in a stranger’s private affairs. In this era of false internet intimacy, a change in Swift’s dating life floods tabloids and comment sections, and the sight of any dreamy A-lister in a new paparazzi photo will unleash a host of Buzzfeed articles and frenzied TikTok videos. Superfans feel that they have a right to these normalized invasions of privacy not simply because of the alluring entertainment of celebrity drama, but also because they experience the illusion of a private, face-to-face relationship. Since the fan hysteria of Beatlemania in the early 60’s, or girls drooling over heartthrobs like Jim Morrison and Roger Daltrey in the 80’s, the typical superfan has been inflated into something several times more severe. Their love has turned from obsessive to suffocating, from joyous to feverish––to the point where regular strangers are being exalted to a level of idolatry that rivals that of a god. 

Ultimately, parasocial relationships are what promote our celebrities to such high pedestals. After all, they speak to us through their music, they relate themselves to us, and they treat us like old childhood friends: naturally, it can be easy to forget that the records they make are sold to millions of other people. This leads to the feeling that celebrities are inhuman or omniscient in some way; that they can somehow know us personally while also performing on a worldwide stage. The reality is that no one has that power except God. With God, we are no longer a shout into the void, and a relationship in the parasocial sense is inherently impossible. When we pray, He listens. With a celebrity, we are simply reduced to a nameless speck in a crowd of thousands.

As a Christian, I often see a problem with the extreme devotion to celebrities that much of secular culture tends to ignore. To pour your highest level of admiration into another human (as many superfans do) is to worship an idol; a false god. As God says to the Jews in Exodus 20:2-3,

 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” [5]

I regularly catch myself placing my obsessions with music or celebrity culture above my faith, and I’m sure I’m not alone. While it can feel shameful, secular culture is particularly aware of this fervent aspect of the superfan and has completely normalized it, at times cheekily self-aware about the Christian sinfulness of it all (my favorite example is the satirical and infamous religious candle where Jesus’ face is photoshopped and replaced with a portrait of Harry Styles or The Rock. Seriously, search it up––you can find unlimited renditions on Etsy).

The idea of love when it comes to celebrity fan culture can be a tricky game. I come across the word all the time while I’m scrolling comment sections or watching a gushing speech from the Grammys, and I rarely take a moment to contemplate the gravity of it. I’m sure we’ve all been at a concert when some desperate fan screams “I LOVE YOU!” into the gaping silence between sets––their voice painfully echoes, and the performer on stage undoubtedly hears them and offers an uncomfortable nod. Yet, we rarely take a moment to ponder what the word ‘love’ may really mean to a fan who is instinctually screaming it across rows of seats: how can they truly love someone they have never met?  

The truth is, the person that they are loving is a made-up version of someone that they have contrived; an illusion of perfection. However, love in the Christian sense allows for us to see our favorite celebrities as human and love them ever more for it. The Bible is always elevating broken people, and Jesus’ love inherently searches for that brokenness and yearns to make us whole again. Sin is a fundamental element of human existence, so to hold anyone to a standard of perfection simply would be an impossible feat. The apostle Matthew was a tax collector before he was a follower of Jesus, a man who was vehemently hated by the Jews for upholding a profession typically known for being notoriously unjust. [6] The average man would have thought it impossible to reform Matthew, yet Jesus welcomed him with open arms. In Matthew 5:43-45, Jesus says:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” [7]

And in Ephesians 4:32, 

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” [8]

At its core, Christian love is defined by forgiveness, and is inexhaustible in its nature. Sadly, it struggles to fit into the modern, secularized definition of the word––especially when it comes to celebrity culture. Social media has made us feel so much closer to the A-listers and internet personalities that we idolize, and the typical love of the superfan tends to deny even the chance that their deity could contain human-like flaws. What follows is a vicious cycle: without any means with which to accept the mistakes that our celebrities make (and trust me, they do make mistakes), fan culture can turn ugly and unforgiving. In return, celebrities are forced to cover up any flaw that could risk them getting “canceled” in order to maintain the image of divinity that has been brutally assigned to them.

The looming consequence of cancel culture leads to an empty form of love that is inherently un-Christian. The superfan’s love is one born out of idolization, and not many people in the media today do well with the slapping fact of reality that our celebrities are sinners. Forgiveness is scarce and ‘loving your enemy’ is an idea seen as even more appalling as fans dig up old tweets and analyze every action with a scrutinizing eye. For them, a mistake is a dealbreaker; a career-ending factor that they can wield like a weapon. In this way, the media’s infamous superfan––perhaps pictured as a teary-eyed teenage girl begging for Harry Styles to sign her forehead with Sharpie––wields an unlikely power. The superfan’s love can simultaneously create a top hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and catastrophically destroy a career. 

As a young person, I have noticed how the craze around celebrity culture has become a notable facet of the adolescent experience. Teenagers and college-aged students alike are widely known to show unrivaled displays of devotion to celebrities, and our enthusiasm has made us a target for social media marketing teams and Spotify playlist curators (the teen beats playlist alone has over 2 million likes on the streaming platform). Yet, I beg the question: why is it so easy for us to fall victim to the media’s celebrity delusion and frenzied cancel culture? Perhaps we are searching for guidance; for a way to live our lives with a greater sense of purpose. Perhaps we’re lonely and yearn for more meaningful relationships than those that we share with our peers. Or perhaps President Pollack was right: our obsession with music has sealed us off from the world, to the extent that the made-up impression of a stranger with over 20 million monthly listeners holds more legitimacy than the relationships in our own lives. 

Regardless of the reason, the fervent kind of love that we offer to these distant and glamorized figures will never lead to fulfillment. After all, the pedestal that they stand on is nonetheless a shaky one: with one mistake, we’re typing out hate comments on their Instagram post and boycotting streams. It is through God alone that we can achieve the closeness that we yearn for––and the acknowledgment of this is the first step to healing our society’s obsessive celebrity cult. God’s glory reaches far and wide, shining on every facet of our lives. Therefore, I propose we redefine what it means to be a superfan as a Christian: to recognize the humanity we all share and love our brothers and sisters in a way that acknowledges flaws. To accept the musician as human, and not to fault them for it. When loving becomes forgiving, it becomes boundless, and it becomes infinite––it is the only love we will ever need. 

This article appeared in Claritas’ spring 2023 Love Issue

Sources

[1] Nutt, David. “Students urged to connect and engage – without headphones.” Cornell Chronicle. August 29, 2019. 

[2] Nadia. “50+ Statistics Proving Spotify Growth is Soaring.” Siteefy. December 11, 2022. 

[3] Donald, Horton. Wohl, Richard. “Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction.” Department of Sociology, University of Chicago. 

[4] Taylor Swift, Instagram. November 1, 2022. 

[5] Exodus 20:2-3, ESV. 

[6] Denman, Brett. “The Apostle Matthew.” Oregon Live. October 22, 2010. 

[7] Matthew 5:43-45, ESV. 

[8] Ephesians 4:32, ESV.