The Personalization of Celebrity Gossip

The John Mayer Playboy interview has got me thinking about a lot of topics, but the one on the table for this post is the way people now interact with celebrity gossip. There's always been an aspect of judging celebrities based on gossip stories, but it feels like that's increasing. I've talked to plenty of people who don't listen to John Mayer's music that don't just have an opinion about him, but have a strong opinion about whether or not he's a douchebag, whether he was a good boyfriend to Jennifer Aniston, and whether he's a misogynist. I've been trying to work through why that is.

I think there's two main contributing factors. The first I'll refer to as TMZ, but it really encompasses all of the expanding celebrity paparazzi coverage. As the coverage has gotten more constant, people feel like they know the "real story" moreso than in the past. Of course, we don't. We have no idea what went on between John and Jen, even if we saw more pictures of them than an analogous couple from 20 years ago.

But I think the bigger change are personal blogs and Twitter. They allow celebrities to speak directly to their fans. This is of course a lot of fun and occasionally enlightening, but it also gives people a greater sense that they "know" a celebrity. Of course, the picture you get of a celebrity from Twitter is still a mediated one - 140 character thoughts are to understanding a person what a paparazzi photo is to knowing what's going on in a celebrity's life. This works both ways: on the one hand, people have a greater sense that a celebrity is their friend, but they also judge a celebrity negatively if they say something provocative in a tweet.

What it all adds up to is that a person in the limelight now is subject to a scrutiny that is much more personal and heated than it was in the past. This has to be hard for celebrities who are aware of how they are perceived, and have to deal with the inaccuracies and out and out lies that get passed around as news. Of course, if they try and fight back using Twitter, they get an unfiltered communication device - but they also subject themselves to even greater scrutiny.