Hunger and Fame
The internet is becoming a distorted version of itself. I unfortunately am just as addicted to my phone as the next person, my guilty pleasure being spending a lot of time on X to catch up with music news and news from the world, and I have increasingly come across a puzzling phenomenon. Users going to battle with themselves over their favorite pop stars.
The deification of movie stars, pop icons, actors, and singers serves in the contemporary era as a substitute for cults of gods and goddesses, since objects of worship are arguably needed regardless of them actually having religious connotations. Life is bleak and hard and having an icon that lives what we think is a perfect life, with perfect clothes and immaculate morals, is a form of escapism that I think we all, in some form, find relief in.
So, there is nothing wrong with the idea that being connected via social media to our favorite artists makes us feel like we’re touching gold. Fame is a contagious disease, and a lot of us feel compelled to touch a star because it makes us think that its shine could rub off on us.
Neon Installation - Camilo Matiz, Miami Art Basel. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
Lady Gaga recently released her highly anticipated single from LG7, 'Disease,' and, as expected, people on the internet are already lynching each other over it. And I’m not talking about people who like it vs. people who don’t. I’m talking about her own fanbase.
One of the most ridiculous after-effects of singers being on social media is that the parasocial hue makes people think they are so close to the music industry that they know better, or could know better, or, even more comically, could do better. Anyone familiar with X will tell you that stans have become so arrogant that they must feel included in their icon’s thinking, lest they, excuse my French, lose their shit. Fans/stans must be pampered to, their wants and needs must be included, they want to know the managers, publicists, make-up artists, their tweets must be taken into consideration etc. If not, there will be consequences. I have seen people insult Gaga, her team, her manager, and her family just because they think this new single’s rollout is not going how they think it should, all in the name of charts and a place in today’s zeitgeist. Am I the only one seeing how counterintuitive that sounds? So Gaga should care about the charts because her fans want her to care about the charts for her own good? What is this? A case of misplaced identity where a person’s spirit now resides in the people who admire them and now serve as master puppeteers? Eerie.
Yet we see this kind of fan behavior all the time: Taylor Swift putting unreleased versions of songs on her albums just because fans asked for them; Ariana Grande’s unfinished songs being stolen and then released on the radio and her feeling obliged to respond; Beyoncé’s fans demanding visuals, taunting everyone they think is in her close circle about new music and new art; Britney Spears being talked about as if she is a child just because she is not complying with her fans’ demand for new music, purely because they were made to feel like they set her free. It’s insane. And it’s contagious. This fury on the internet would infect even the holiest of Buddhist monks. Ten minutes on TikTok and I also feel inflamed.
Artists have become art-printing machines. Forget money and forget the industry. Artists are to their own fans' cash cows: they must be milked constantly and shall be punished when they take a bit of their creative freedom back. Which leads me to my conclusion.
In the Italian language, 'fama' (fame) and 'fame' (hunger) are very similar words with different etymological roots, yet they seem poignantly interchangeable on social media. In the words of Britney: “you want a piece of me?”. I thought that was supposed to mean that people wanted a glimpse into her life, although I am now confused if it’s supposed to be figurative or literal, since I’m convinced that, if these megastars didn’t have security, their own fans would eat them alive trying to devour and taste a piece of their magic. When did cannibalism become chic again?
