Lessons from my First 15 Minutes of Fame
Being on a pedestal is a precarious position. There’s only one place to go from there: down — and down is in every direction. Gravity is not at its most charitable in this sort of situation. Even without falling from it, being on a pedestal invites scrutiny under spotlight and begs for rotten tomatoes to be thrown.
There’s a phenomenon in social psychology I’m forgetting the name of. When we see someone we view as having more power than us — whether due to fame, wealth, beauty, intellect, or other measures of status — a part of us wants to see them torn down to size. We are eager to find any crack in the glaze, chink in the armor. This is driven by some combination of projection of every time we have been made to feel inferior; powerful gut-level emotions such as jealousy, anger, bitterness, spite; and our altogether human sensitivity to unfairness, and longing for justice.
Stated differently, while idols can inspire us to reach for our own highest potential, more often than not, they have a way of bringing out the worst in us. The perceived power differential triggers some sort of bypass of our normal filters that cause us to want to see others with mercy, compassion, grace, and forgiveness. We don’t think famous people need any of these from us. Why would they, when they already have so much more than everyone else? Some part of us tied to the universal drive toward equilibrium wants to balance the scales by contributing shame where we see glory.
We rarely see ourselves as sharing common humanity with the stars, or consider what it’s like for them to live under all that pressure. We are so enthralled and envious toward the idea of having all that beauty or wealth that we fail to imagine what it would be like to have to sacrifice, for the rest of your life, the ability to appear in public like a normal nobody. The simple pleasures of a walk in the park or a cup of coffee in a humble cafe will be forever off-limits. Or, for that matter, the freedom to be some random, forgettable, drunken weirdo crying in a bar or otherwise making an ass of oneself.
There’s no such thing as a normal love life for a star. The paparazzi and tabloids sit like cats poised just outside of a rodent’s burrow with laser focus, ready to pounce on the first sign of movement. Breakups are almost always complicated, but imagine if hundreds of thousands of people were waiting at the ready to construe a story, pick a side, and demonize either you or your ex in reaction to polarizing, presumptuous, distorted, oversimplified, clickbait hyperbole.
Today’s climate may be riskier than ever for publicity. In addition to the usual pressures of this familiar tightrope stars have had to learn to walk, now they are at risk of being “canceled” over sociopolitical issues too. One wrong move, ill-timed joke, or date gone badly could ruin the rest of their career and set off a witch-hunting mob hungry for their head on a platter.
In case it isn’t clear, I’m not talking about myself. Yes, I began writing this article to process my experiences of a brief initial foray into the public eye, but I don’t have grandiose delusions that equate my experience of gaining a few thousand followers to Hollywood stardom. However, I may have gotten a microscopic taste of this experience, and without adequate training to help me prepare for it, nor with a gradual enough ramp-up to allow for adjustments. I believe I don’t yet have the consistent poise that it takes to occupy a thoroughly public position full-time. I can be graceful, wise, and measured when I’m “on,” like I am during therapy sessions. I wouldn’t have gotten this far into my therapy career and become well-loved by many clients without that ability. In fact, much of my courage to trust my instincts and speak my truth has come from this process going over well, time and again. And my writing is generally clear and thoughtful. But I can also be messy, impulsive, and ill-mannered. Those closest to me know the goodness in my heart, and many of those at a distance see it well enough too. But I can’t trust everyone to see it, especially not when taking into consideration the respective natures of humans and the internet. Many don’t want to see my goodness. I’m learning that it’s not just those who disagree with my entire philosophy that will be quick to antagonize me, as expected. It turns out that those who support most of my work can develop high expectations of me such that they too are always one step away from disparaging my value should I disappoint in any way. That might be the most painful, least expected byproduct of notoriety I’ve experienced yet.
I can’t expect others who barely know me to go through the mental effort of imagining that perhaps my messiness that shocks and disappoints them is only the end result of a long day of devoutly conscientious efforts. It’s the fruit of willpower depletion, a counterbalancing pendulum swing from the caring restraint I’ve exercised throughout the day, week, or season. Reflecting on this, when I think of what it must take to maintain a cohesive and reliable public persona day and night, I doubt that I have what it takes. But probably what’s closer to the truth is that I just haven’t gotten there yet, and it’s going to take some adjustments. I don’t yet know how steep the learning curve will be, and I am anxious about the consequences of the errors I have made and will inevitably continue to make as I move along that curve. So for now it’s healthy for me to take a break from social media, and work on getting my ducks in a row while I regroup and prepare for the next wave of public engagement.
…
On my way back from a much needed brief solo vacation, the song “Hero” by Family of the Year came through my earbuds.
“Let me go
I don’t want to be your hero
I don’t want to be a big man
I just wanna fight with everyone else
You’re a masquerade
I don’t want to be a part of your parade
Everyone deserves a chance to
Walk with everyone else”
I’ve liked this tender, poignant song since I first heard it years ago in the beautiful film Boyhood. But I couldn’t quite get the choice of the word “fight.” Isn’t a hero the one fighting for everyone else? Why would someone who has been projected onto as a hero want to fight with everyone else?
In that moment in the airport yesterday, with moist eyes, I got it. The expectations on the hero are immense, and very little have to do with fighting. Perhaps the ultimate hope people project onto their protagonist is that he will make peace, resolve their conflicts. The hero must be compassionate, fair, and broad-minded enough to see from all perspectives, find unifying themes and resolve divides. He must be relied on control his own emotions, see beyond his own perspective, and consistently behave in a way that transcends his own gut reactions for the sake of the greater good. In a way, he must sacrifice his own humanity for humanity.
When asking to be removed from the mantle of heroism, the hero wants to be able to be as messy as anyone else. He misses the freedom to not measure his every move, but to be instinctive; to not base his every action on a thorough analysis of what will help and heal the most people, but rather, to act for himself — sometimes impulsively, emotionally, even angrily. Those around him are fighting, not for some noble cause, but because each person is acting selfishly. His song is a plea to be free to relinquish his precocious protagonism, return to his own youthful naïveté and be a sloppy adolescent without some dramatic, highly consequential fall from grace. He wants to step down from his exhausting pedestal of awakened higher consciousness, lay down, fall back asleep, and become another member of the crowd as unreflective as the rest of them. He wants to be able to throw some punches without being castigated as a disgrace.
There’s more I want to say on this, but for now it’s time for me to step down and have a moment of rest. Perhaps I will come back to it later. But I won’t hold myself to it. Goodbye for now.
