The Cost of Privilege

What is with our obsession with celebrities/royals? How do we stop caring?

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Ask Guerrilla Femme is an advice column for paid subscribers published monthly.

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Welcome to Ask Guerrilla Femme. First thing’s first: I’m not a doctor. I’m not a therapist. I’m just a person who knows some stuff or at least knows how to find information (hi, librarian here)!

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Dear Guerrilla Femme:

What is with our obsession with celebrities/royals? Why do we care so much about them? How do we stop caring?

-L.K.

Hello dear L.K., thank you for bringing this question to me.

I saw a great thread from Aja Barber, specifically about The Royal Family in regards to the new public information about Kate Middleton’s cancer diagnosis. For context: Barber lives in England. Barber wrote, “All the insufferable white lady finger wagging over Kate’s diagnosis is a bit much today. I wish her well. But frankly… I wish I didn’t pay for a royal family as well. Telling the general public that they should feel bad for wondering what’s up when we pay for it is patently ridiculous.”

I think it’s hard to not be a little bit obsessed with celebs when they are all pushed in our faces. With celebs being on social media, they are even more difficult to ignore. If you’re an elder millennial like me, you may remember the time before social media. I barely heard about celebs! I would only read about them by looking at an old issue of People magazine in a healthcare clinic waiting room. Once social media erupted and celebs jumped aboard, us commoners have had much more access to them. To me, this isn’t a good thing.

I follow some celebs on Instagram and some of them follow me. I would be lying if I said that them following me didn’t make me feel like the popular kid I never was in high school. It’s incredibly easy to create parasocial relationships in online spaces. I’ve been working on this myself and encourage you all to as well!