What Does a Celebrity Owe the Fans? Pretty Much Just What the Fans Paid For.

Wow…

A friend of mine wrote a piece the other day that, despite the initial appearance created by the title of apparently chastising bad celebrity behavior, chastises bad fan behavior. It is a great example of bad fan behavior, but I’m not really interested in specifically discussing the incident or the celebrity involved here. Rather, I’m more interested in the comments by some in discussion threads where the article was posted to social media; comments that I’ve seen put forward for years now by others in multiple conversations on the topic.

And these comments are a defense of “fans” acting with ill manners towards people they claim to like. They’re comments insisting that a celebrity, tired, in public, and simply wanting to catch their ride home/to a hotel, or out with their family, is the one acting poorly by not stopping and giving in to the demands of every person who wants something from them. They’re comments condemning the celebrity for not staying hours past a scheduled time (even after staying over a scheduled end time) to sign stuff when there were still people in line. These comments come in two basic forms.

(1) Celebrities owe their fans something for the fans making them rich and famous.

(2) It is the fans who make the celebrities what they are.