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It’s over, consumption: celebrity culture and climate anxiety

We’re stuck in a cycle of production and consumption, and we’re getting sick of it

Greenwashing strategies from the world’s best marketing agencies have successfully commodified the environmental justice movement. Our culture has a shopping addiction, and it’s going to kill us.

Even those of us that are self-aware about this fact can have a difficult time denying manufactured desires. We have been trained to collectively consume both media and products before we could think for ourselves. Can we really be blamed for finding it a hard habit to kick?

Capitalism pushes the belief that if we cannot consume, we should aim to produce. Our society doesn’t exactly place a great value on simply “being.” The 21st century has brought forth the first period in creative history in which artists are creating “content” rather than their own “art.” It’s created an insular experience that focuses on aesthetics and a culture of fashion “micro-trends” that develop at increasingly rapid rates. And it’s become more and more difficult to source clothing in order to keep up with these rapidly changing trends. It’s hard to tell if the emergence of fast fashion retailers like Shein are a response to the problem or the source of it. We could easily blame influencers, but under late-stage capitalism, I can’t really blame anyone for taking a shot at joining the ranks of celebrity, C-list or otherwise.

We are far too aware that there is a divide between economic classes, and with the democratization of media and a “produce or consume” mindset, it’s not surprising that more and more people are choosing to seek power by producing content in the hopes of attaining at least a modicum of fame. Celebrity, or at least influence, seems to be the go-to escape plan from the collective paralysis we feel about our climate. 

What is it about our culture and celebrities? We are fascinated by them and appalled by their existence. They’re our inspiration and the evidence of our downfall. Celebrity is the aristocracy of the postmodern world. They represent something beyond the entertainment industry, the characters they play, or the stories they write. They represent the small part of the world’s most powerful population that is public to us. Rarely do they hide their material wealth because, unlike other members of the one per cent, they do not have the luxury of keeping their finances or their lives private. They are public figures, and to us, the dazzling glamour can make it difficult to recognize them as real people.

Our relationship to fame is one in which we transform individuals into God-like figures. This process has been democratized, and average citizens and politicians can often reach the ranks of the most famous elite. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a unique example of this practice of glorification. AOC has done a lot of great work in the United States political system, but with that said, why was she at the Met Gala?

The relationship between political figures and celebrity status is a sore topic in the newly post-Trump world. Why risk violating the principles upon which you were elected just to join the ranks of the rich and famous? The Met Gala is an event designed for the most elite population in the fashion world, an industry that famously is one of the greatest drivers of climate change. Why align yourself with an industry that is exacerbating the effects of climate change, when you yourself are advocating for climate reform?

The thing is, the climate crisis we have spent our whole lives anticipating is here. It’s already happening, and we still cannot take concrete action to prevent it from getting worse. This really isn’t our fault, we were born into this mess, but our leaders don’t seem to be doing a great job either. We’re living in a state of paralysis, caught between the desire for the life we were promised and the reality facing us all.

The stability and wellbeing of our planet hinges upon either the embrace or abandoning of capitalism, therefore it shouldn’t come as a surprise that economic instability impacts our ability to advocate for better. Climate anxiety is our collective nihilism pushing us to take action, but we continually find ourselves with little we can do. Our collective hopelessness about systemic change has pushed us to a point of ecological nihilism.

Ecological nihilism is the acceptance of the climate crisis, and that it will be the beginning of a societal collapse. It’s the final sign that we have moved from paralysis and fear to complacency. It might feel like the end of the world, but if there’s still a chance; we can’t look to celebrities or fiction for solutions.

Last Friday, there was another climate march here in Montreal, which demonstrates that people are still coming together to demand change. Community organizers are not demanding impossible change, it is the failure of our government that refuses to take reasonable action to combat the violence of the climate crisis. We cannot depend on government approval to take action against climate change. The power remains with the people, and it isn’t time to give up yet.

 

Graphic by James Fay

When fashion and music meet queerbaiting

Why I’m critical of Harry Styles’ fashion

At 27-years-old, British singer Harry Styles is already a universally recognized fashion icon. In his post-One Direction career, he adopted a more flamboyant and fashion-forward dress, wearing pink suits, pearls, sheer tops, dangly earrings, nail polish, and high heel boots. He’s earned significant praise for breaking away from the strict (and boring) confines of traditionally masculine clothing. The culmination of Styles’ rejection of toxic masculinity through fashion was in December 2020 when he became the first man to grace the cover of Vogue solo — wearing a Gucci gown.

Others have already pointed out that he isn’t exactly a pioneer; his fashion is inspired by musicians David Bowie and Prince, who were also known for “gender bending” fashion before he was even born. This trio’s fashion isn’t exactly unique or revolutionary either, however. These three are just those who have been uplifted by the industry, and our culture, because they have been deemed more palatable.

Bowie was white, and although Prince was a Black man, for part of his career he was presented as multiracial due to his lighter skin tone, and his role as a biracial musician in Purple Rain. Bowie and Prince flirted with rumours about their sexuality, with Bowie even stating that he was gay and bisexual in the 70s, but both were ultimately presumably straight, as Bowie later said he was “always a closet heterosexual,” while Prince became quite conservative.

Despite this, Prince and David Bowie are widely considered to be gay icons. In contrast, Little Richard, a rock ‘n’ roll pioneer remembered for his “fervent shrieks, flamboyant garb, and joyful, gender-bending persona” who inspired Prince and Bowie musically and stylistically, has not been afforded the same status even though he referred to himself as gay and omnisexual throughout his life. Sylvester, an androgynous and openly gay singer best known for his 1978 disco hit (and LGBTQ+ pride anthem) “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” has also been largely forgotten in this discourse.

Styles has kept his sexuality ambiguous. And while I respect his desire to keep certain details private, there is a long history of bisexuality being used by musicians to seem more interesting and transgressive which has ultimately contributed to stigma that continues to surround bisexuality. He’s denied “sprinkling in nuggets of sexual ambiguity to try and be more interesting,” but I’m admittedly a little weary. Even if Styles is queer, right now, his sexual orientation is ambiguous and he’s only ever publicly dated women. This allows him to benefit from queer aesthetics and allows queer people to identify with him, without Styles having to deal with nearly as much homophobia as other entertainers like Lil Nas X or Billy Porter, who also sport very feminine and androgynous fashion on red carpets and are both openly gay men.

Styles’ rise as both a fashion and queer icon shows how, despite more representation and diversity in our media, we haven’t made much progress since the heydays of Bowie and Prince.

Actor and singer Jaden Smith was featured in a womenswear campaign for Louis Vuitton at age 17, wearing a skirt. This made him the first man to model women’s wear for the fashion house. Smith has been wearing outfits similar to Styles for years, once wearing a skirt to his prom and even launching a gender neutral clothing line. But as one Twitter user pointed out in response to someone commenting on Styles’ impact on the fashion industry, “its the way jaden smith has been wearing the outfits harry styles has, but yall called him weird and made fun of him.”

Fashion similar to Styles’ is common among male K-pop idols, who are frequently criticized for “looking like girls” in the West. G-Dragon, a 32-year-old South Korean rapper and the leader of hip hop group Big Bang, has been called “a chameleon who often makes peak-era Lady Gaga seem staid.” Though, for much of his career, G-Dragon has dressed quite traditionally masculine (albeit much more fun and fashionable then the average male celebrity), he’s also been unafraid to wear makeup, heels, skirts, and drop earrings, or sport long hair and look beautiful. He’s gone way beyond anything Styles has ever done in terms of gender-fluid fashion, but in his more toned down moments he’s dressed very similarly to Styles.

Despite this, male K-Pop idols like G-Dragon are not considered queer or fashion icons, and neither is Jaden Smith. While there are other factors besides race or xenophobia at play, it would be irresponsible to totally ignore that.

When it comes to male celebrities — whether we’re talking about Styles, Prince, or Smith — feminine, androgynous, flamboyant fashion is usually exotica. Rarely do they actually dress that way off stage or off the red carpet or magazines. When they dress outside traditional gender roles they do deal with criticism, but they also get attention and praise while regular queer people who dress like that are at risk of violence when they walk down the street. So when our culture puts men like Styles on pedestals, it feels like a way for society to pat itself on the back as super progressive while ignoring the struggles of the LGBTQ+ community, particularly queer POC.

I think Styles is helping to make fashion less binary and showing a different type of masculinity, and I’m happy he’s dressing however he likes. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be critical and have an intersectional perspective that helps us realize why his fashion is so hyped up. There is a long history of queer and Black culture being appropriated by privileged white cishet people who are celebrated for these aesthetics. And queer people are often so desperate for representation that they will idolize the crumbs they’re given even when it’s obvious queerbaiting.

So the solution seems simple: you can love and appreciate Styles’ fashion, but make sure you’re uplifting the true pioneers.

 

Photo collage by Kit Mergaert

Reframing Britney Spears in the cultural landscape

What can we learn from a retrospective look at Britney Spears’ time as a pop star?

What does Britney Spears have in common with a can of Pepsi?

They share the neuron that’s fired in your brain.

“A celebrity face may function as a reinforcing stimulus whereas the product is a neutral stimulus,” according to a study that analyzes celebrity product endorsement.

Translation: consumers with a positive association to a celebrity will generate warm favouring to the product they endorse, even when their stance was otherwise neutral to the product, as seen in neuromapping.

The recipe goes like this: place a celebrity next to the product in a commercial, and the product will tap into some of the happy memories you have of the celebrity, located in the cerebral cortex of the brain.

So, we see how this relationship impacts the product — Pepsi inherits the feel-good memories I have when I think of dancing to Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” when I was five years old.

But how does this connection between product and person impact my impression of Spears?

Do we start to relate Pepsi more to Spears, or is it the other way around?

I’m talking about human objectification. I’m talking about concepts like “celebrity brand” and, its echo, “finding your brand,” which flips a profit off self-objectification.

On the page, this may read like a jump to you — the idea that self-branding is an act of violent objectification. But the brain doesn’t parse between “positive” objectification, like a lucrative advertising campaign, and “negative” objectification, like vicious online threats to celebrities.

The brain cannot tell that I am only self-objectifying, as in “branding,” in order to, say, sell myself to this company I want to work for. The brain only fires neurons.

The normalization and commodification of objectifying ourselves and others works to divert our attention from who people are to how people appear. This distinction facilitates cruel online “trolling.” It turns people’s suffering into memes. It rewards snappy hatefulness.

Objectification of ourselves and others is ultimately subversive to the age-old battle for women’s equality, as it reinforces systems of violence that exclude women from medical, legal, and financial independence. Example: Spears.

Reality check: Spears’ first hit single, “Baby One More Time,” with its super suggestive lyrics and iconic baby-doll school uniform, was first released when she was just 17 years old.

From a young age, we drank Spears like lemonade on a hot summer day. Her “brand” in the early days of her career — a girl next door type who played dumb half the time and spoke in a baby voice — made it possible; encouraged it even. As she grew up, our consumption of Spears intensified, with paparazzi following her every step for our benefit. I want to watch her personal life unfold. I want to know why Britney and Justin broke up — whose fault was it? As this objectification intensified, it did so with consistent sexist bias.

Our brains are elastic. They learn from repetition, reinforcement, and other sly tricks. The dawn of neuromarketing broke open a new day in the advertising world. Its repercussions permeate public identity, culture, celebrity fate, moral shifts, personal finance, and so much more.

Spears is the intersection point of all these other consequences.

A recent documentary by The New York Times Presents, “Framing Britney Spears” chronicles the experiences that have led Spears to endure a lifelong pursuit from paparazzi, suffer various mental health episodes before an unforgiving public, and to experience a conservatorship for more than a decade, which charges her father with managing her fortune, among other things.

Looking back, we can agree that what happened to Spears was unacceptable, and many who were ousted in the recent documentary have come forward with their own reckoning with the situation. I remember watching the 2007 “Leave Britney Alone” video in high school, tickled by the outburst, and completely oblivious to the rightful urgency of the message.

But the issue of objectification persists in mainstream culture and news. Jojo Siwa, a child celebrity who self-identifies as the first person “to be licensed as a brand,” is celebrated as a feminist icon for “owning” her brand.

Siwa is 17 years old, around the age Spears was when she first released “Baby One More Time.” These are people, who are literally children, celebrated for the relatability of their brand. People are congratulated for living an experience publicly that appears authentic while they treat their real life experience as a commercial, with products seamlessly embedded into their human experience. This is called an “ownable” brand.

The major distinction between Siwa and Spears is the latter’s sexualization for profit. Spears was sexually objectified from a young age, a phenomenon many of us can now agree is wrong (don’t ask someone whether they’re “still” a virgin during a televised interview!). Siwa’s team, in contrast, have managed to create a brand that exploits Siwa’s youth and bubbly — almost childish — personality, rather than cash in on her sexuality.

This distinction is not a feminist celebration. This is not a success. Spears is a living example that even the most talented and wealthy women can still be subjected to unimaginable harms and systemic oppression that excludes them from financial, medical, and legal autonomy.

Our brains can’t distinguish between “good” and “bad” objectification. The problem isn’t that sexual objectification, such as the objectification Spears endures, is bad, it’s that objectification in itself changes how our brains perceive the world, which then impacts how we relate to one another.

Humans were made to connect because together we are stronger. But if our brain no longer distinguishes a person from a product, then that weakens our natural inclination to bind at a granular level. It weakens our capacity to communicate effectively, to form meaningful bonds, to have each other’s backs.

For decades we drank Spears the persona and Spears the person.

Her manager says she may never perform again, and honestly I understand the decision. She expressed that she’s “taking time to be a normal person,” a rightful boundary that swells me with shame, as it should.

My brain registers Spears like a can of Pepsi: the person, the persona, the product — despite her humanity. Now it’s my job to rework that understanding, to retell her story with respect and compassion as I reflect on the times I danced to her music, soaking it up.

 

Photo collage by Kit Mergaert

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We Do Not Need Another Celebrity Makeup Brand!

Hear me out, if a beauty product works well, I will be the first person to come to its defense and encourage others to buy it.

That being said, one thing I simply cannot stand behind is the manipulation of consumers coming from celebrity beauty brands.

Selena Gomez recently announced that she is launching her own brand called Rare Beauty, following in the steps of Kylie Jenner, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Mille Bobby Brown and several other celebrities who own a beauty brand. I can’t blame her, the highly profitable beauty industry is booming.

According to Vogue, the $532 billion global industry has become so saturated that we, as consumers, are completely overwhelmed by our choice. Including celebrity makeup brands in the mix makes it even more impossible to buy products that we believe will work for us.

Let’s go back to November 2015, when Kylie Jenner launched her beauty brand, Kylie Cosmetics, which at the time consisted of three shades of liquid lipstick. The three shades sold out in mere seconds and created huge waves in the makeup world. This launch sent out a message to many celebrities that a large following paired with three simple beauty products can send their fans into a spending frenzy.

According to Criteo, beauty kits and skin care have the highest online penetration compared to any other products available online. Emarketer called the US retail commerce of health, personal care and beauty products the second-fastest growing category among those they track.

Once celebrities began to realize that there was an unbelievable amount of profit to be made in e-commerce and product development, plenty of other celebs have and will continue to jump on this bandwagon. Countless celebrity cosmetic brands have emerged and have been putting their fan base back a few bucks.

Loyalty to a celebrity or idol should not translate into buying their products. These brands aren’t targeting everyday consumers who shop at the drugstore or perhaps Sephora for their beauty products. Their exploitative marketing strategy relies on hype and the loyalty of their fanbase to result in sales.

However, this exploitation is not necessarily new to us. Celebs have been collaborating with cosmetic companies to create fragrances and become the face of a brand for years now—the reason being that it works. People buy products that are associated with celebrities, regardless of how involved they were in its creation.

As I mentioned, if a product works and is something the cosmetic industry has never seen before, I will support it. What made Kylie’s launch so successful is that she was one of the first to harness the hype surrounding her infamous pout and launch an e-commerce brand. I must admit, this was a brilliant business move.

Another celebrity makeup brand that did it right was Fenty Beauty, by Rihanna. The singer and businesswoman launched a 40 shade foundation line, which no other brand has ever done. The diversity and inclusivity that is engrained in her brand created a niche and a need for her products. Many people who were unable to wear foundation found their shade because of Fenty Beauty.

The truth is that celebrity cosmetic brands typically don’t bring anything new to the table. They can get away with creating a similar version of a product that is already on the market and trust that their followers will buy it.

At this point, if a brand isn’t establishing their own niche in the industry by launching a unique product, I have every reason to believe that they simply want your money. 

Graphic by @sundaeghost

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Backlash for Nick Cannon’s “whiteface” photo

Graphic by Jenny Kwan

Do we need to lighten up, or is this an upsetting display of reverse racism?

To promote his latest album that bears the cringe-worthy title White People Party Music, Nick Cannon, who is black, revealed a picture of himself on his Instagram in heavy makeup that made him look Caucasian. It has been dubbed as “whiteface.”

The picture was met with criticism and the public drew comparisons to the degrading blackface minstrel shows of the 19th and 20th centuries. With faces painted black and exaggerated lips, performers portrayed blacks as dim-witted, lazy and dishonest, among other stereotypes.

Graphic by Jenny Kwan

As a black man, I can personally attest to how those racist depictions are among the most hurtful and maddening visuals within our culture.

On the other hand, the attention-starved antics of the America’s Got Talent host spawned the following question: should a black person painting his face white draw the same ire as the opposite scenario? In my opinion, the answer is simple: Not at all.

The minstrel shows were instrumental in disseminating and upholding the crippling narrative of racial inferiority and that unfortunately continues to shape the black experience to this day. Whether it is on the basis of ethnicity, gender, economic class, sexual orientation or mental illness, heightened sensitivity is warranted for groups that have historically faced institutionalized discrimination.

For example, given the ongoing fight for gender equality, I don’t believe that a woman saying that all men are dogs is nearly as bad as a male counterpart saying that all women are…well, you catch my drift. However, that doesn’t mean the question is not valid.

In fact, it is a progressive step towards regulating an odd and implicit social norm — members of disadvantaged groups having carte blanche to ridicule others without any fear of reprimand. Cannon’s statements defending his actions only strengthen the point.

“Yes, we have issues with race in this country, in this world. It doesn’t have to be with hatred,” he explained during an appearance on Good Morning America. “There’s a big difference between humour and hatred.”

He seems completely oblivious to the fact that the stock he places in his intentions is completely irrelevant in other cases.

Madonna’s recent Instagram faux-pas — referring to one of her sons as the N-word in the caption of a picture — was harshly criticized. Her claims that the intention behind the use of the word was not racist mostly fell on deaf ears, mine included.

But naturally, when Cannon casually claims that the spirit in which he performed the stunt should factor into how we interpret it, claims of a double standard are legitimized.

In addition to posting the picture, Cannon included hashtags that included “Dog Kissing,” “Good Credit” and “Fist Pumping.” Although I’m sure they are not necessarily as derogatory as the buffoonish portrayals of African-Americans during minstrel shows, such sweeping generalizations are ultimately counter-productive.

It is in fact fair for some to perceive that there is ultra-sensitivity on one end of the spectrum while unrestrained ignorance is allowed on the other.

Of course, when tastefully done, humour that revolves around our cultural differences has the power to bring us together. Considering the immediate reactions, it’s fair to say that Cannon’s attempt failed miserably in that regard.

In the end, I believe it is reasonable for everyone to have the right to determine what they deem offensive. Asking anyone to relinquish that right because of a perceived societal privilege is anything but.

Cannon remains confident that his actions were meant to challenge our society to discuss race, which is fair enough. But just as he wants us to lighten up, some of us need to tighten up as well.

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