This year has brought a lot of carnage in the form of celebrity relationships ending. It seems like every day, another long-term couple is breaking up or getting a divorce. While I am not one to speculate on the reasoning behind break-ups, I am notoriously nosy when it comes to celebrity relationship pairings. No break-up affected me quite as much as that of Taylor Swift and Joe Alwyn’s six year long romance coming to an end, and it sparked a fallout of epic proportions when the news cycle seemed to be centered on the break-ups of practically every celebrity couple.
Swift and Alwyn, Ariana Grande and Dalton Gomez, Sofia Vergara and Joe Manganiello, Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepied, Britney Spears and Sam Ashghari and Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner all have called it quits within the last several months, and each has resulted in a parade of devastated fans and gossiping tabloids.
But why? Why do we, as fans and even passive consumers of pop culture, care so much and put so much emphasis on the relationships of complete strangers?
For me, at least, I think it all boils down to parasocial relationships. Most of Gen-Z has been affected by a celebrity or influencer at some point in our lives, and we all have the battle scars to prove it. Whether that be memories of Twitter wars or Instagram editing pages past, many of us have been doomed to the life of a fangirl.
I grew up on social media. I argued with people over their opinions on television shows and tried to convince others that my favorite actors were secretly dating. I have since seen the light, and I now realize how invasive some of these behaviors were. But despite my best effort, I still find myself falling into old patterns sometimes.
Watching celebrities fall in love and, very publicly, get their happy endings, can make even the most cynical person feel all warm and fuzzy. Seeing a fairytale wedding come to life for two actors who met on a movie set brings out those same feelings that the best romantic comedies do. For me, I love love. And I love it when celebrities fall in love more than anything.
I have a soft spot for co-star romances, so much so that I often find myself, against my better judgment, rooting for two actors to get together in real life, for no reason other than the fact that I love their on-screen chemistry. It’s invasive and annoying, and this behavior often leads to co-stars neglecting each other in public out of fear of sparking dating rumors. I don’t harass anyone publicly, but I can confidently say that I have often been on the right side of history with my celebrity couple predictions.
When Joe Alwyn and Taylor Swift broke up, a lot of people claimed that they no longer believed in love. I was one of them. But as the rumor-mill spinned out and took hold of the media in the days and even weeks following the split, I came to think about things a little bit more clearly.
I didn’t understand why we, as fans and the media, feel so entitled to knowing the intimate details about celebrities’ personal lives. In all honesty, it comes down to the way that the media has become so invasive. Over the years, paparazzi have taken many hits for their tendencies to cross the line. There are many examples of this throughout the late 90’s-2000’s, including Princess Diana’s death being caused by a paparazzi chase and Britney Spears’ life being permanently altered by a public mental health crisis brought on by the media being invasive.
While things are definitely improving–we’ve come a long way since the scene in “Hannah Montana” when Miley and Lily try to take an embarrassing photo of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in exchange for an embarrassing photo of Miley/Hannah–that doesn’t mean they’re perfect. What we’ve lost in invasive photographers lurking on every corner, we’ve gained in journalists not knowing when they’ve gone too far.
Being able to recognize our invasive tendencies for what they are goes a long way. It’s important to remember that celebrities are real people too. They have lives and loved ones, and they have feelings that matter. Yes, breakups are sad. It’s never easy to watch a relationship end. But we also don’t know these people. We don’t know the details of their lives, and we never will. So let’s all stop pretending like we do.