I, unfortunately, have been way too familiar with this occurrence. As you may know, Ye (formerly known as Mr. Kanye West) has been acting absolutely insane these past couple of weeks. Any excuse for him has already been used up, and any sort of silver lining has been completely erased. His words have gone too far and hurt too many people beyond repair. And anyone who knows me knows I used to love Kanye. I mean, I literally bought my Rolling Loud Miami ticket to see Kanye when he was supposed to headline it. I defended this guy even during his 2016 tirade. I know what you’re thinking: “Driena, he was just as controversial then as he is now! What makes this time any different?”. I hear you, and I agree. His music played a really big part in my adolescent years, and I wasn’t ready to accept that my favorite musician was a deeply flawed person who also held such hurtful sentiments. There was a part of his music that resonated with who I was, and therefore, I defended him because I perceived him to be like me. But, after maturing more, at the wise age of 19, I have strong enough morals to know when to condemn certain celebrities for their inexcusable comments.
So, after my much-needed awakening, here is a guide I made on what to do when your favorite celebrity is a piece of shit.
RULE NUMBER ONE: DO NOT DEFEND THEM. It’s crazy I have to even say this. When a celebrity says something ignorant (racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, etc) you should not defend them just because you like them. It’s okay to disagree with them, I promise. People are complex and sometimes they learn and change after they’ve said horrible things. But only after they’ve demonstrated that growth, can you go back to mildly enjoying their presence again. By blindly defending a celebrity, it shows the lack of boundaries and morals you have of your own. It is, unfortunately, what Kanye likes to call, “sheep behavior”.
Rule number two: distance yourself. Just like after a breakup, you need to distance yourself from the situation in order to understand it. This is something I had to do with Kanye after his obscene statements. When you’re not blinded by someone’s echo chamber of a fanbase, you can think for yourself and see if what has transpired is truly unforgivable. You may be in shock that someone you loved passionately could be so offensive and close-minded. A good alternative is to find a new unproblematic celebrity to hyper-fixate to fill the void until you can get your thoughts together. Usually, the star figure’s PR crisis team will give them some sort of redemption that will let the media die down for a while as well.
Rule number three: sign a petition against them. Lol, I’m just kidding. There’s not much you can really do after this, except disown the person as your favorite celebrity. It’s unreasonable to expect people to be perfect 24/7—agreed. Sometimes, ignorance can be corrected with enough education and compassion. But it’s up to you to decide what is a mistake versus a permanently flawed fundamental way of thinking. Furthermore, it’s important for you to follow through on your actions as well. These celebrities don’t care about you. There’s no amount of art they can create that could be enough to cover the fact that what they said was offensive, ignorant, and bigoted. Do not compromise your beliefs for a grown 50-year-old man having a meltdown on Instagram and Twitter. There will be other artists who make good music and won’t wish “death con 3” on a historically marginalized group of people.
Even though this person could have positively influenced you in the past, there’s no shame in letting that go and becoming a better-informed and proactive member of society today.