Imagine being in a cage and having millions of people watching your every move. Anytime you made a mistake it was on the cover of every magazine and you can’t even log into social media without having millions of notifications of people judging you.
Though the life of a celebrity may seem glamorous, it’s actually a lot of pressure and a big toll on the person. This past week Justin Bieber posted on Instagram stating he won’t be taking anymore pictures because he feels like “a zoo animal.”
Some people didn’t take the news well and called him rude. Some comments said he chose to be a pop star and this just comes with being famous. For most of us, I think it’s hard to imagine what actually comes with fame. Not many know what they’re signing up for before they become famous. Bieber is definitely onto something.
He’s not the first celebrity to feel this way and he certainly won’t be the last. Recently Amy Schumer said she won’t be taking pictures anymore because of a recent incident. First and foremost, we don’t treat celebrities like humans. Earlier this year my roommate and I went to a free Justin Bieber concert for "Good Morning America." While we were waiting a girl came back screaming that she found his car and he asked her to step back. But instead, she threw her hand into the car to touch him. If that happened to any ordinary person we would have realized how weird and crazy that is.
Just because they’re celebrities doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have boundaries. In a world of technology, it’s hard to have any privacy. Our smartphones are pretty much attached to our hands and we're constantly checking social media to see everything that everyone’s doing. Even if celebrities don’t post, someone tweets or Instagrams their locations. From there it's easy to find them.
Fans seem to have a sense of entitlement when they say things like, “I bought your album, I went to your concert and I saw you were here, I should be able to get a picture with you or grab your hand.” But that shouldn't be the case. They live in a world so foreign to us that we can’t help but be fascinated by it. Their lives are always on display and we see every wrong move they make. The magazines and Internet are like the glass that we see the animals behind.
Not only do some fans feel like the celebrity owes them something, they also feel like the celebrity should be on all the time. We don’t allow them to have a “bad day.” We expect them to smile, greet us and take pictures with us at any given moment. They don’t have a second to unwind from a stressful day.
I get it. You want to see and take pictures with your favorite celebrity but there has to be some line. Instead of shoving a phone in their face, talk to them for a little bit. I think the most important thing to remember is that celebrities are people too. We have to treat them the same way we want to be treated. It sounds very simple, yet we forget this when we meet someone famous. We have to know our limits. We need to learn when it’s a good time to talk to them and when it’s not. We have to treat celebrities like humans.
