.
And because celebrities and artists can be tied to memories and nostalgia, it can become even trickier to unpack. Some music, for example, is like the soundtrack to our youth. Should we stop listening to it if the lead singer is in hot water?
“It can be difficult for people to watch a movie and forget ‘I have these conflicting feelings about the actor’,” McStein says.
Parasocial relationships and social media
Part of why celebrity scandals can feel so personal is because of something called parasocial relationships. They go a step further than simply being a fan, McStein says.
Since the airing of the gut-wrenching documentary Leaving Neverland, many of us have wrestled with an uncomfortable yet essential question: given everything we know, can we continue listening to Michael Jackson’s music?
They occur when an individual starts to engage in a more personal relationship with the media figure — yet the relationship is one-sided.
“They might know all these details about the person’s life and feel they are somebody they could be friends with or more intimately connected with … but the celebrity or media figure has no idea about their existence.”
“Many people turn to parasocial relationships to fulfil that need for social connection, which makes those relationships much more fragile.”
The internet and social media have made facilitating these one-sided relationships easier, as personalities can give away more details about themselves, but also engage with audiences (even though it might only be their PR team doing so).
“These relationships are largely idealised. Media figures don’t often put everything out [about themselves] on social media,” McStein says.
“They curate their image and present a persona they want people to think about them.”
Fans may then fill in the gaps, McStein says, with details that cement a sense of closeness or alignment with the person.
Dr Toni Eagar, a senior lecturer of marketing at Australian National University, researches the relationship between consumers, culture and the marketplace.
She says people can find parasocial relationships comforting.
“They help us make sense of the world … they feel like social connections.”
And while they can be helpful in that regard, for example, alleviating loneliness, they can be problematic. For example, when leading to obsessive behaviour, Eagar says.
Why it hurts so bad when celebrities let us down
How connected you feel to the personality, or how big a role they play in your life, will dictate the level of betrayal or disappointment you experience, McStein says.
For example, “if you are feeling lonely, and there’s a breakdown in that parasocial relationship, you would be devastated as you’ve created your whole world around this person,” she says.
Cognitive dissonance, which is the mental discomfort from holding conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes, also influences our reaction, McStein says.
“We have this idea that a person is a certain way, and when we find something that contradicts that, it can make us feel quite stressed.”
Eagar says we often hold the idea that celebrities and artists have an obligation to be morally superior to the rest of the world.
She says that’s partly rooted in the historical thinking that “artists and their ability to create art was as close to godliness as humans can get”.
And we are living in echo chambers online, she says, where we may see celebrities as mirrors of ourselves.
“Therefore, when encountering a celebrity with an opposing view, we might be more shocked or confronted because we are living in these more narrow bubbles.”
How we react
Eagar says we typically have three response options when it comes to shocking news about our fave celeb or artist.
Ignore: “Minimise the scandal or moral failing until it dies away.”
Justify: Excuse or rationalise what has unfolded.
Divorce: “We sever the relationship,” Eagar says, adding that this is the most “individually traumatic” if you have a strong parasocial relationship with the media figure.
Women are judged more harshly and are more easily disposable.
Dr Toni Eagar
She says what you will do can depend on the gender of the celebrity or artist, with men more likely to be “forgiven” or their actions “justified more”.
“Women are judged more harshly, and are more easily disposable,” Eagar says.
McStein says most commonly, people will either dismiss the evidence or tear down the image they had of the person.
“The grey area is when people try to separate the two things,” she says.
“Maybe they realise they didn’t know them as well as they thought they did.”
Dealing with the disappointment
Michael Jackson is a common example used in debates around separating art from the artist.
Pexels
Feelings of sadness, hurt and disappointment are all valid, McStein says.
“From the person’s point of view, it is a real relationship or someone that has been important to them.
“It’s OK to be sad and rethink the nature of the relationship.”
It can help to realise celebrities, artists, and influencers are human, too, she says.
“They can be complex, and sometimes do things that are contradictory to what they did in the past — and that’s OK.”
Depending on the issue, we can often be quick to criticise, forgetting there is a real person on the other side, McStein says.
When it comes to separating the art from the artist, Eagar calls it “The Billie Jean Dilemma”.
“We process information emotionally first. Therefore, our foot is tapping along to ‘Billie Jean’ before our brain has registered it’s Michael Jackson,” she says.
“There is a difference between [the argument] ‘should we stop consuming the art of morally corrupt artists?’, and ‘can we stop enjoying the art of morally corrupt artists?'”
