• Margot Robbie@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Never meet your heroes.

    I really feel that people really puts too much reverence into the words and actions of celebrities, and are disappointed when they are not the person who they appeared to be.

    But, if you take a step back and actually think about it, you see these people on your screen every day, do you know who these people really are? Most of you have never met these people before in your life!

    The person see on your screen in image and text form is not the actual person, but projections of the person behind the screen (a character, if you will). That’s what social media is, and that’s what all media are, you present your character to to the rest of the world and tries to sell the life of that character you made up. Of course, when the projection of the character in front of screen doesn’t match up with the person behind the character (Ellen, Cordon, Brand, now Kari Byron, etc.), of course you would feel cheated.

    Maybe that’s why I’m here. I don’t want anything out of you other than to laugh at my shitty jokes, and I don’t really have anything to sell you other than some dumb movies. It’s rare to find that these days, and that’s really all there is to it.

    After all, you are who you choose to be, so, I try to be someone better, someone you know that you can be proud of, and if you are still reading this, I do expect you to do your best, so I can be proud of you too.

    • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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      1 year ago

      Met Bill Nye the science douche and yeah… anyone that wants to be as famous as that probably should have expected them to not be a good person.

      • BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Man he was totally cool when I met him. Probably when you’re famous you have days when you can handle people coming up to you and days you can’t.

      • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’ve also heard that people are really weird around him. Childhood fans asking really esoteric science questions about their fields.

        • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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          1 year ago

          He came into my class to teach do a guest lecture. Rambled incoherently about space and with bad science then tried to turn it inspirational and gave up after 15 minutes at most and left unceremoniously. It was a waste of time for those of us there to study physics.

          And then he was a guest speaker at an event, absolutely took over and made the night entirely about him. Was a douche about water straight up called me a moron in front of hundreds of people because he asked a question poorly and I lowered my hand.

          A professional friend in the planetary science space who is far to old to be a fan, hates him from a birthday party for ray bradbury so he’s been a douche for a while and not just to fans

      • 🐍🩶🐢@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I had him for my college graduation and I felt privileged to have someone who had such a large impact on my childhood there. Really great speaker and definitely gave off the cool vibe. I didn’t get to meet him 1-1, but I think a lot of it is subjective, how the person is that day, and the setting. Obviously if someone has done terrible things, especially sexual or abusive, they don’t get a pass.

    • The Pantser@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I met Ben Heck at MRRF and he cooked me lunch. Nice humble guy that does a lot for the disabled gaming community. Now I know he’s not a huge celebrity but he’s been on TV and has had multiple shows.

    • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Yep. I think the term for it a parasocial interaction.

      None of these people are our friends. They’re just people on our TV screens, or other devices. Many of them are actors and are simply acting in a way that makes them likeable. Some of them are good people, others aren’t. There’s no way of knowing based on what we see on our screens.

      If something on a screen is entertaining, that’s good. You’ve been entertained, you got the product you wanted. But that in no way indicates anything about the people that created the product, good or bad.

      Also if you find out that someone that makes that entertainment product is a shitty person and that negatively affects the entertainment value of the product, just find entertainment elsewhere. That is a normal and healthy way to handle it. People may characterize this to be “cancel culture” but those people are either weirdos or people in show business who have an incentive to continue this idea that the audience is somehow obligated to watch the things they put out.