Worst time to be a celebrity

[Thomas]

I'd say mid-2000s. The '90s still had a bit of timeless ironic pop cultural cachet in the bank, but the 2000s - imagine being a celebrity in your prime in 2006. Instantly dated. Flip phones, bootcut jeans, Anna Friel's wardrobe. The Chris Moyles Show, boys' discourse navigating the post-9/11 deathbed of lad culture. Damon Albarn's got bags under his eyes, Oasis are going to bed early, you missed out on the Hacienda. Russell Brand is failing to break America. Kate Moss and Pete Doherty are playing '60s for sleazy tabloid photographers. The onset of unfamiliar 24/7 online coverage. Dan Wootton is on the line.

Dunno. The era makes me wince and I think about it sometimes. The celebs of today (your Dua Lipas etc.) seem to have wrangled social media very well, at once immediately accessible and yet coolly distant. But look at Ben Affleck's expression. He's sad that he was young and famous in 2003.

I'm sure a clever person has analysed the mythos surrounding different eras of celebrity.

EDIT:
Don't know why I made this thread. I'd just read this on Wikipedia:

Moyles was accused of homophobia in May 2006, when he rejected a ringtone by saying "I don't want that one, it's gay", live on air. This led to a number of complaints to the BBC. They argued that the use of the word gay in this context was homophobic. The BBC governors said that Moyles was simply keeping up with developments in English usage.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I'd have thought now was worse. The bottom has fallen out of the music industry. Movie stars aren't box office draws any more. I assume younger slebs are better at negotiating social media, but the constant scrutiny can't be pleasant for anyone, even compared to having paparazzi following you.

[curiousoranges]

Whenever "cancelling" became big. In the 90s and first decade of the 2000s, social media wasn't really a thing, so celebs didn't have the same threat of a career-ending pile-on. Agents like Max Clifford could really protect you then, as they had such influence over the few channels of information. No "celebrity publicists" can have such clout now and older stars, who were once untouchable, were some of the first to tumble.

[the science eel]

1961 by FAR

[checkoutgirl]

I'd have thought now was worse. The bottom has fallen out of the music industry. Movie stars aren't box office draws any more.

Yeah now is worse, the cinema is on its arse and could be gone. Even if you were a box office draw that's fat use without a box office.

CDs and physical media a distant memory. Musicians were sold out by the record companies to spotify for fractions of a penny on the dollar meaning they have to tour to make any cash. Everyone's got a camera in their pocket ready to film any indiscretion. Social media is a net negative for so many celebs.

That's not to mention MeToo which is great for the victimised but terrible for people who get into the entertainment industry to get as much sex as possible which in the 70s was about 75% of men.

[bgmnts]

I'd say social media is the absolute worst thing to happen to celebrity ever. That veil between untouchable demi-god and mortal peon is gone and they are one tweet or post away from ruining their career for a few months.

[Thomas]

Sorry, my conception of 'worst' here was deliberately a shallow one - aesthetics, public image, mythos. I appreciate these more serious reflections.

[Brundle-Fly]

Cameraphones and social media makes the past fifteen years the worst time to be a celebrity. As Robbie Williams once opined, "Everyone's a grass now."

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I'd say around 1350, due to the bubonic plague sweeping across Europe and killing around 50% of its population.

[wrec]

I'd say around 1350, due to the bubonic plague sweeping across Europe and killing around 50% of its population.

Including 50% of the competition. And once herd immunity kicked in, people were
eager to laugh again, and surviving funnymen (gender balance in medieval standup being somewhat skewed) were sitting on lucrative piles of bubonic material.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

bubonic material and lucrative piles?

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Bubonic? I hardly knew her.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Gail Porter having her naked arse beamed up onto Big Ben in the hope that she might be considered for a job hosting a breakfast TV show is like some fantastical thing out of a Desolation thread, yet it was a thing that actually happened.

[ajsmith2]

Got to agree it's almost objectively got to be right now for actually BEING a celebrity. The OP paints a vivid picture and that may well have been be the pits to experience celebrities as a media consumer, but now is definitely far far worse to be one. The cancellations or threat of, the mass Twitter induced intelligence and mystique annihilation, I don't even need to go on beyond those 2 monoliths of bad times for celebs to confidently make the case for it being the worst time ever to be one.

[Kankurette]

I'd say social media is the absolute worst thing to happen to celebrity ever. That veil between untouchable demi-god and mortal peon is gone and they are one tweet or post away from ruining their career for a few months.

And you end up finding out that your favourite musician, actor, footballer etc. is a racist, a misogynist, a train wreck, a conspiracy theorist etc. Just ask any trans Harry Potter fan.

[touchingcloth]

These days you can't even grab them by the pussy. It's pussy conservation gone mad.

[Glebe]

Today Eric Idle is joining us on the Big Breakfast bed.

[The Dog]

4am

[petril]

it was definitely when you were younger, more innocent and further away from exposure to the dark side of celebrity

[idunnosomename]

Immediately after this thread was posted

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Cameraphones and social media makes the past fifteen years the worst time to be a celebrity. As Robbie Williams once opined, "Everyone's a grass now."

"(staccato delivered with deliberation) Dear Jim, please can you fix it for me to interview you under caution at Scotland Yard about various camera-phone recordings we have been shown."

[curiousoranges]

#TimesUp

[Gurke and Hare]

Including 50% of the competition. And once herd immunity kicked in, people were
eager to laugh again, and surviving funnymen (gender balance in medieval standup being somewhat skewed) were sitting on lucrative piles of bubonic material.

Who did they get to play King Edward III in the mummer show about the bubonic plague?

[Sebastian Cobb]

The days after you get yewtree'd I imagine.

[The Lurker]

Noughties panel shows had a reputation for having a nasty undertone which can't have been nice to hear if you were the butt of the jokes, just ask Luke Chadwick. You'd like to think that wouldn't happen now on TV but it doesn't take long to find the equivalent on social media.

There was a three-part documentary on the BBC about a year ago on being famous in the 21st century. People who were on reality TV back in the early noughties made the point that no matter bad the stick they got in magazines were, it would've been far worse if social media was around at the time of their fame.

[Noodle Lizard]

Yeah, it's clearly this time. The perks are lower and the pitfalls higher than ever. It's somehow coincided with more and more people wanting to become one, though. We thought reality TV stars and socialites were bad, but look at the state of their new variant in influencers and YouTubers etc. All these little microcosms of celebrity. It's another one of those things about the internet which sounds ideal - the idea that anyone can reach a large enough following of dedicated supporters to gain niche notoriety for whatever they're doing - but in practice is often grim, soulless and inevitably ends in drama.

If anything, a lot of celebrities who came up before all of this have weathered the storm better - provided they don't use social media and stay out of the unnecessary limelight as much as they can. And should any of you decide to become a celebrity, for the love of god don't ever date another one.

[BritishHobo]

While now is definitely the worst, I think Thomas is also right because it must be worst to be someone now who rose to fame in the noughties. If you get famous now, you probably know the right things to say, and what you should never say. If you were famous in the noughties then the chances are high that you've said at least one incredible cancel-worthy thing at some point, something sitting there in your back catalogue of work that you must be constantly praying nobody ever remembers. I can think of several comedians who are seen as pretty progressive but were saying things in like 2007/2008 that would ruin them on Twitter.

The biggest factor in today being the shittest time is I don't think anything has actually got better. For a while I thought that we had matured past the tabloid days of shaming celebrities for looking a bit queasy in tabloid snaps, calling teenage actresses whores for having a bit of skin on show, or laughing at the wacky misadventures of singers who are struggling with fucking horrible drug addictions. I thought for a couple of years that we were a bit nicer now and knew not to pass judgement so easily. But if you look on Twitter or TikTok, it's all still going on, and the sheer volume of it is unprecedented. I thought the days of Jade Goody were behind us, but just watch when people take a dislike to a Love Island contestant. Brutal.

I've said this before, but as a kid in the late 90s/early 00s, being a celebrity seemed so cool. Fuck I wanted to be JK Rowling, millions of people obsessed with a world I've built, treating me like a genius. Fuck that - for many reasons.

[Tony Tony Tony]

Gail Porter having her naked arse beamed up onto Big Ben in the hope that she might be considered for a job hosting a breakfast TV show is like some fantastical thing out of a Desolation thread, yet it was a thing that actually happened.

Gail Porter spoke about this on the Elis James and John Robbins podcast thingy. Seems she wasn't aware that the stunt was being pulled until she heard about herself in the news. On top of that she was never paid for having her arse all over the mother of parliaments and her nipple, visible in the original pic, had to be photoshopped out so the 100 foot image of a naked lady could be beamed on the side of the Palace of Westminster in a tasteful manner.