I’ve lived my life with a rather simple state of mind when it comes to the activities of other people. I stopped trying to assume anything about anyone. Nothing is my business at all. Seriously, my mom used to emphasize that you never know what anyone is going through behind closed doors – only that person understands themself fully, so why should I care how they order their coffee, how they choose to spend their free time? It is none of my business.
Because of this, I think I’ve naturally been inclined to mind my own business. This policy that I lived my life by confused me with recent pop culture moments; everyone needs to seriously start minding their business.
If you have been anywhere near the internet at all this week, you would know that social media users across all platforms have been wondering where Kate Middleton is. She has been missing from the public eye for a while, unusual for a member of the royal family. Amidst concerns, the royal family put out really off-putting evidence to assure the public that she was alike, including a photo that seemed to be photoshopped (and poorly done I might add).
Almost immediately, social media users analyzed the evidence and made their predictions as to where she was. A lot thought she was dead, some in a coma, and few believed she had gotten a BBL. And when the news came out where she actually was, users were quick to eat their words.
When it was announced in a video from Kate that she was undergoing cancer treatment and had not been in the public eye for a while, theories quickly went down the drain. Everyone seemed to collectively take a step back and say “Maybe we did go too far this time”. Don’t worry, there are still people analyzing her video announcement for AI-generated content, since nobody learned their lesson the first time.
And, this is not the first time something like this has happened. You can see examples of this getting out of hand time and time again, the general idea of cancel culture that heated up in early 2020 provides many examples of the public having too much information at hand about their favorite celebrities. Granted, it is easy to debate on whose fault it really is, because it is the choice of the celebrity to put out as much information as they want. But this is what happens when fans push just too much.
Another instance I witnessed this was in lieu of the documentary release, Quiet on Set. The documentary follows the abuse of television stars in Nickelodeon’s golden age. This documentary, riddled with disturbing content, had Nickelodeon’s own stars calling it a tough watch’.
Many people were not satisfied with the fact that some stars were missing from the documentary – where was Ariana Grande? Jeanette McCurdy? Josh Peck? People demanded an answer, for the full story from every actor. Did people really care about the issue, or did they just want drama? If there was true care and concern for the issue, would they want these people to take their time reliving an issue that infiltrated their lives for so long? I can’t stress enough, just mind your business.
This quick and easy access to celebrities has been a growing issue, in fact, I feel as though it has completely altered the way celebrities and fans interact. When an artist releases a song and as a result, the track gets sped up on TikTok, within the week, there will be a sped-up version available on Spotify. Demands for songs on tour, for answers to their burning questions make it almost impossible for celebrities to avoid the desires of fans.
Again, this issue will not go away, since modern technology has turned us into entirely different humans that see too much of each other at any given moment. But, many of these issues could have been avoided if we all started minding our own business and recognized that celebrities are, in fact, real people. Just because you know loads of information about them does not make you inclined to butt into their personal lives.