Celebrity, Pandemic, and Domesticity

Abstract

IN PRESUMED INTIMACY, SOCIOLOGIST CHRIS ROJEK WRITES THAT media audiences may have "para-social" relationships with two media apparitions: statistical people and celebrities. By "parasocial" he means emotional connections to remote persons far beyond our kith and kin (1-10). A big disaster intensifies such connections with statistical victims and with celebrities as audiences look for meaning, direction, and emotional outlet. As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infects every population, statistical people-once media's remote victims of disaster-are now us, comprising nearly eight billion and summarized in escalating numbers of the infected, the surviving, and the dead. As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, celebrities on social media have status as arbiters of this crisis, but an intensified domesticity has transformed their roles.Glimpses into celebrities' private lives, including their habitations, are essential to feelings of intimacy and kinship with them. The crafting of these seemingly private realms-including access to them-is part and parcel of celebrity marketing. In a disaster where massive numbers of people, worldwide, are forced to stay indoors, this display of domesticity is riveting. As people meet online, newly revealing their own domestic spaces for work and play, celebrities' domestic spaces are screen openings among many such openings. As celebrities are seen going about their daily lives, they perform among many ordinary performances and in relation to them. The contrast of their strange lives to the ordinary could never be more pronounced.One of the more interesting transformations is the spectacle of action heroes-who would normally be racing to save the day-placidly reveling in domesticity. These include Arnold Schwarzenegger smoking a cigar in his hot tub and feeding carrots to his donkey and miniature horse at his kitchen table; Sam Neill petting a duck and bird-calling; Patrick Stewart in an armchair reading Shakespeare's

Get Ratioed

“…To narrow the range of tweets to be examined, only tweets that had been ratioed were considered. Getting ratioed may mean that: a) a tweet received more replies than retweets (O'Connor & Shumate, 2018); b) a post garnered many negative comments (Chapman, 2019); or c) a post received more dislikes than likes (Larabee, 2020). For the purposes of this paper, a tweet was considered to have been ratioed if it had more replies than likes.…”

“They Are Wallowing in Luxury, but Complain About the Struggles of Lockdown”

“…Given this role modeling and advisory function, celebrities often try to help during stressful periods by sharing personal messages and advice. Scholars have indicated an increase in shared celebrity messages during several world crises (e.g., Ebola, Zika virus; Manganello et al, 2020), including the current one of COVID-19 (Larabee, 2020). Whereas many believed in the positive and supportive contribution made by these posts, the popular press recently expressed concerns about the fact that such celebrity messages might be processed differently during stressful periods (Cummins, 2020; Larabee, 2020).…”

“…Scholars have indicated an increase in shared celebrity messages during several world crises (e.g., Ebola, Zika virus; Manganello et al, 2020), including the current one of COVID-19 (Larabee, 2020). Whereas many believed in the positive and supportive contribution made by these posts, the popular press recently expressed concerns about the fact that such celebrity messages might be processed differently during stressful periods (Cummins, 2020; Larabee, 2020). Although this has not yet been investigated in a celebrity-audience context, it is known that chronic stress levels have implications for the way people interact with each other, and for how they process messages of others and regulate their emotional responses to these messages (Leventhal, 1970).…”

“…This can be observed in the specific context of COVID-19. Trends of scapegoating have been noticed (Jedwab et al, 2020), and exemplary figures and celebrities have been blamed for sharing misinformation and unrealistic representations, which may be accentuating social inequality (Kim, 2020; Larabee, 2020; Manganello et al, 2020). Some recent sources have even talked about the start of a new era regarding the meaning and position of celebrities in our society, characterized by disconnection and the realization that “stars are not like us” (Holoway, 2020).…”

“…This study aimed to examine how audiences respond both emotionally (positive and negative feelings) and behaviorally (commenting) to celebrity posts on SNS during a stressful period. More specifically, this was investigated in the COVID-19 context, as the pandemic caused chronic stress among many people (Douglas et al, 2020) and inspired several celebrities to share personal stories and advice on SNS (Larabee, 2020; Manganello et al, 2020). To better understand the underlying processes, we conducted a field study that explored the role of one contextual (cues to luxury, e.g., luxury brands, expensive possessions, influence) and two individual (upward social comparison orientation [SCO] and attitudes toward the celebrity) factors in explaining audiences’ emotional and behavioral responses to real celebrity COVID-19 posts.…”