Chappell Roan isn’t like the other girls. At least, she’s certainly a new breed of celebrity.
The pop superstar shot to international fame in a matter of months earlier this year. Five of her songs worked their way to the Billboard Hot 100 – her debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess shot to number one on the US iTunes chart. By July, she had racked up 24 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Her relatively modest tour sold out. Resale tickets to her shows in London skyrocketed (I should know, I tried to get one). After ten years of slowly climbing her way through the music industry, Chappell Roan has suddenly found herself at the top.
But in fascinating twist of events, Chappell hasn’t exactly embraced every aspect of her hard-won stardom. Rather, she has consistently fought against her celebrity status — and in the process, she has revealed an uncomfortable truth about the current state of celebrity in our culture.
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We are, after all, at an interesting moment when it comes to celebrity culture. The noughties era of intrusive tabloids may be a thing of the past, but social media has since become a breeding ground for superfans and stans. Fan accounts and gossip channels fixate on their favourite celebs and overanalyse every detail of their lives. Nothing is off limits.
And in the real world, this has translated into — well — some pretty unhinged behaviour. Fans demand photos from their favourite celebs or shove cameras in their faces. Celebrity lip reading videos often go viral, as viewers try to analyse private conversations.
For the most part, modern celebrities have been media trained within an inch of their lives. Every move they make, every outfit they wear, every interaction they have is pre-planned and precise. And, of course, they are never seen to reject their fans — even the very, very intense ones.