The Death of the Celebrity

by Alanna Duffield

Opening your phone these days is a bit like playing on a slot machine. You’re in for one of two outcomes: money, or loss. Luxury lifestyles, or dead children. It’s no wonder that we’re desperately reaching out for help in any direction. And yet, whenever the world endures major hardship, the public looks to celebrities for this help. We look to these beautiful people for support and expect them to be just as beautiful on the inside, too. The problem is, at almost every turn, they disappoint.    

Celebrities being ethically useless isn’t new. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, we watched the Kardashians take garishly lavish holidays while the rest of us watched funerals on Zoom. During the current eco-crisis, we're treated to information about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce taking ten-minute flights while the rest of us rinse out our yoghurt pots for recycling. But it’s perhaps this latest bout of uselessness that has made many of us wash our hands of the idea of The Celebrity completely.     

The images and footage that we’ve seen coming out of Gaza would be unbelievable if they weren’t so clearly real. And yet, it’s become controversial to oppose it—many openly support it. Very few celebrities have come forward in support of Palestinians, whereas vast numbers have remained silent. Back in the day, it might have been good PR to keep quiet about so-called ‘politics’, but as we acclimatise to the age of the internet, more and more people share the belief that silence is complicitness, and that it’s impossible to be alive without having an awareness of what’s going on. This is especially frustrating when said celebrities are happy to raise their voice for issues that concern them more, and worry their brand less.  

Similarly, excessive displays of wealth are beginning to wear paper-thin. When Kylie Jenner infamously posted a photo of two private jets with the caption “you wanna take mine or yours?”, she found that the public mood had shifted, perhaps irreversibly. The affluence she displayed went from aspirational to concerning to downright gross. With the years we have left to save our planet slipping away, the more we hear about the dire position of the natural world and our precarious place in it, the more we are done with this kind of excess. An excess which is essentially the bread and butter of the modern celebrity.   

I don't like celebrities. Can you tell? But honestly, I can't think of a single A-lister I would be friends with. Even the ones I used to vouch for (Rihanna was a particular favourite) end up saying or doing things that rip the rose-tinted glasses right off my face. Maybe I take a hard line, but I do think it's high time we stopped looking to such an outrageously elite bunch for anything other than a good hairstyle. The 2023 discourse around nepotism showed us that, nine times out of ten, celebrities are born into their world of recognition and idolatry. Most of them have never lived a normal life. They don’t take the bins out. They don’t write cover letters. They don’t live near their neighbours. They don’t repair things when they break. They don’t watch the price of milk rise with a worried brow. They don’t get their cancer treatment through the NHS. They are nothing like the rest of us. 

It’s safe to say celebrities aren’t going anywhere. We’re too dependent on the idea of them. But I do think the way we perceive them is changing for good. From the British Royal Family to Beyoncé, there was a time when certain celebrities could do no wrong. That is no longer the case. The general public are becoming bolder in their scrutiny and are filling the silences of their ‘stans’ with their own conclusions. We are - I hope - beginning to understand that the power to change things comes from the people around us, not above us. Communities. Neighbourhoods. Friends. Protests. 

In realising this, we will naturally be far more satisfied with the outcomes. People - real people - are not weighed down by the concept of a personal brand. They are changeable and willing to learn. They talk in conversations, not statements. They care for people who have less because they themselves have experienced less. We will gain far more satisfaction and liberation from regular people than we ever will from the wealthy aristocracy—which (despite their fun clothes and curated personalities) is what most celebrities really are.   

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