Social Media and the World of Celebrities

Behind The Curtains

In today’s world we are all too aware of social media, but many aren’t aware of the correlation between social media usage and our mental health. Higher periods of activity on social media can lead to increases in anxiety, depression, loneliness and can also cause higher incidences of self-harm and suicidal ideation. This can be due to many factors such as feeling isolated from peers, friends or family, feeling inadequate or having general negative experiences online, but it can also be attributed to online bullying. 

As a celebrity you open yourself up to criticism and are often taught by media managers, PR people and management companies about how to handle any negative attention that comes your way. However, this isn’t always the case and in some cases management companies, music labels and movie producers often allow negative publicity because it gets people talking about their artists, music or movies. What the general public seem to forget, though, is that behind that media persona is a person with real feelings, thoughts and troubles and while negative attention can help sell records, it can also lead to trauma, online bullying and can even lead to suicide. 

As I began researching this article I decided to look into the darker side of fame and how many artists suffer on social media due to bullying. Artists aren’t immune to hateful comments and while many positive comments are witnessed, the ones that stick in your mind are the ones that belittle, humiliate and degrade you. Music stars have recently spoken out about media outlets using them by commenting on their weight journeys, with Arianna Grande recently posting on TikTok and reminding people that commenting on her weight is both damaging and hurtful. 

Harry Styles has spoken out about his sexuality and how he worked on coming to terms with it, in private, with the support of his family and friends, yet he is still constantly abused online, called a Queerbater or worse from a community who refuse to accept him and fans who refuse to see beyond his public narrative of dating females only. This could be extremely damaging, but Harry, thankfully, doesn’t appear to use Twitter much at all now and knows that some fans, such as ourselves, support him regardless of him being unlabeled. 

While on the subject of Harry and mental health, we’d be remiss if we didn’t discuss the horrendous bullying his former One Direction bandmate, Liam Payne, received in response to an interview he did last year. During this interview he commented on the differences between his and Zayn Malik’s childhood. Liam explained that his comments were in no way intended to be derogatory or even inflammatory, but fans of Zayn were incensed and that wasn’t all that occurred. 

Liam also commented on how he was told by Simon Cowell that One Direction was being built around him and while we can’t confirm whether or not Simon actually told Liam this, it does make a lot of sense. This sentiment becomes evident if you closely watch One Direction during the X-Factor, any of their early performances, and even up to and including their first few albums. Liam was always one of the front men, with Harry and Zayn developing massively and eventually sharing that title with him. 

However, many Harry fans were incensed by the notion that Liam was pivotal to the formation and direction of the band in those early days, as were many celebrities who also piled on the Liam Payne Hate Train, notably Lizzo, Sony (yes the label), and Zach Sang (who later apologized and deleted the tweet), but most of the bullying came from people on Twitter themselves who started a trend with which they blocked Liam for anything and everything. 

Many other fans called them out; however, it didn’t stop and with many media accounts adding fuel to the fire it blew up and Liam went completely MIA. He later said that he didn’t leave the house for three months and since he has been back, he appears to have lost much of his beloved sparkle. Bullying did this and according to Liam himself, almost cost him his life. He thanked Louis in an instagram post after Louis’ London Premiere of “All of Those Voices,” stating that it was thanks to Louis and a few others that he was still alive. This statement was later deleted or archived, but only days later there were articles online showing the difference in Liam’s appearance and opening him up for more bullying.

Media outlets appear to love drama and bringing someone down when they are openly admitting they are struggling is not only commonplace, but also almost as though they take pleasure in torturing people when life is already so difficult for them. You would think after stars like Caroline Flack, once a much-loved household name had committed suicide due in part to the media and in part to the intense bullying she received after an alleged assault with her then ex-partner for which she was latercharged. The media fanned the flames of this causing her to be tormented online and tried in the court of public opinion. As a result of the hate and bullying she took her own life. 

Bullying online is something that we should all be very aware of, and we should all be more cognisant that there are people behind the celebrity mask. Not one person is immune to hatred and having hatred at the levels we’ve seen recently can and does cost lives. We’ve lost many celebrities to suicide, and we should all be kinder to people who are clearly struggling. 

Celebrities are human and as such should be treated with the kindness, love and compassion they deserve. They are sharing their art with us and don’t owe us insight into their personal lives, don’t owe us time online and while yes, having celebrity interactions on twitter is wonderful, many more will step back and stop interacting if people continue to harass, intimidate and threaten them.

People seem to think that saying something online removes any blame from them but imagine for a moment that your words cause someone such intense pain that they end their life. I couldn’t bear to live with that guilt, could you? Maybe the next time a celebrity does something you don’t like you could just scroll, block and move on because in today's world it could be you who does something next and has everyone and their brothers piling on you and pouring hate after hate on you.