If you do not indulge in celebrity controversy, gossip or “tea”, then this article is not about you. If you close your ears anytime someone attempts to inform you of the latest starlet’s scandal, or you refuse to look at tabloids in the grocery checkout aisle, this does not refer to you. But, if you are someone who indulges in ANY celebrity slander, please understand this very important concept: The invasion of privacy does not start – or end – at posting, viewing or commenting on celebrity’s nude pictures – it begins when we invade any part of their personal lives.
This weekend alone, hackers leaked nude pictures of Meagan Good, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, Vanessa Hudgens, Hope Solo and Gabrielle Union. A couple weekends before, we saw pictures released of Jennifer Lawrence, Amber Rose, Jill Scott and Kate Upton (and probably a few more that I’ve missed). Since then, the common argument is between the crowd of people who indulge in viewing and reposting the nudes, and the people who believe it’s a massive invasion of privacy. The latter believe that this nude picture scandal is a disgusting invasion of personal privacy and anyone who reposts or even looks at the pictures are just as bad as the person who hacked these celebrities’ private moments. While I’m inclined to agree that posting someone’s naked pictures IS a violation of their privacy, if you’ve been drawing entertainment from the sordid details of celebrities personal lives through blogs, radio and TV, you are standing waist-deep in hypocrisy. And with the explosion of interest in celebrities personal lives, there are many people guilty of this bullshit.
Photo: Shutterstock
About a year ago, I went to a blog conference and listened to many experienced bloggers give their somewhat-expert advice on many different topics. One woman gave a stirring and sobering speech on what new bloggers should expect once they startup their sites. She explained that all bloggers must set realistic expectations with how much notoriety and popularity they expect to receive from their young blogs, meaning that folks who write about gardening tool reviews should NOT expect to get the same traffic as blogs who write about celebrity gossip. She then went on a side-rant about how it seems everyone wants to start a celebrity blog these days, and how she fully understands it because the market is so large. If you want to go from typing on your couch in your underwear, to being featured on TV or even having your own show, get into celebrity gossip. As I sat back and listened to her speech, it dawned on me that we, the people, have created this market for the extensive intrusion into famous peoples lives, and it only gets worst year after year.
If you believe that the posting and viewing of nude pictures are an invasion of a celebrity’s privacy, then I implore you to apply that same logic to all the personal drama that these people go through on a daily basis. STOP viewing and reposting articles about celebrity marriages being broken up. If there are rumors about a celebrity being unfaithful in their relationship, STOP tweeting about it and making it trend on Twitter for an entire week. When a famous rapper gets assaulted by his famous wife’s sister-in-law, don’t craft theories on why it occurred – butt the hell out.
But here’s my guess: None of us will.
We will continue to gawk at personally embarrassing celeb moments posted all over gossip blogs. We will continue to talk about celebs’ personal lives and we won’t even take issue with viewing the paparazzi pictures they snap of famous parents taking their newborn children out of the hospital for the first time. But, we will turn on selective outrage over nude pictures as if that’s the only way we can significantly invade someone’s privacy.
The invasion of privacy does NOT start at Meagan Good’s boobs, it started when she couldn’t even walk out of the house without people wondering who she’s dating, what happened to Thomas Jones, if she’s actually chaste and what is her relationship with the seventh-day adventist church (all issues for which she’s requested privacy). Privacy invasion didn’t start at Gabrielle Union’s aureoles, it started when we couldn’t get enough of knowing why she divorced her ex-husband and the sordid details of D. Wade’s affair and subsequent love child (all incidents that resulted in her demanding privacy). The collective invasiveness didn’t begin with vulvae and ass-cracks, it began with our feeling of entitlement to their most personal and private moments.
So, as someone who has indulged in celebrity BS and continues to do so, you will have a hard time trying to make me feel bad just because I looked at the pictures, when I know I’ve been an unrepentant gossip monger. I refuse to be that guy who loves all of Princess Diana’s gossip, but then blames the paparazzi for her death like fueling MY interest wasn’t putting food on their tables. If we all are so content with reading the proverbial diaries of celebrities lives, does it really make us above reproach if we decide which pages we are going to read?
It sure as hell does not.
Photos: Shutterstock
LAB
Lincoln Anthony Blades blogs daily on his site ThisIsYourConscience.com, he’s an author of the book “You’re Not A Victim, You’re A Volunteer” and a weekly contributor for UPTOWN Magazine. He can be reached via Twitter @lincolnablades and on Facebook at This Is Your Conscience.