Picture this: the year is 2010. In June, Katy Perry drops her music video for ‘California Girls’ featuring Snoop Dogg set in a mystical land of sweets. In September, Lady Gaga shows up to the MTV video music awards wearing a dress with a matching purse and headpiece made entirely from raw beef. Two months later, Nicki Minaj releases her debut studio album Pink Friday which features Minaj’s outlandish alter ego ‘Roman Zolansky.’ To think all these culture-shaping events happened within a six-month window really puts into perspective just how many of today’s pop stars have traded bold creativity to appear relatable.
Back then, pop stars made bold choices that pushed boundaries, for better or for worse, but now stars seem to care much more about fitting into an image of relatability. A pop star used to be something mythical and aspirational, yet now many pop stars carefully present themselves as ordinary people despite their wealth and fame. We are told to believe they watch the same movies as us, they eat the same food as us, they even support the same sports teams as us.
This act of relatability of course has its benefits; we are more likely to be interested in somebody’s work if we feel we have something in common. It is undeniably an effective marketing strategy to position a pop star as a relatable figure but in extreme cases this can foster a parasocial relationship between fans and the musician they idolise, in which the fans mistake curated performances of intimacy for a genuine friendship just because a pop star seems to share similar interests and hobbies.
But this illusion of relatability is chipped away when we are reminded of these pop stars’ opulent lifestyles. During COVID lockdowns, celebrities frequently spouted sentiment about everyone in the world being trapped in the same boat as we fought the pandemic; but their boats were their own personal mega yachts, and we were lucky to be sharing a dingy. In May 2020 Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande released ‘Stuck with U.’ In theory it is a sweet song about the challenges of confinement during lockdown, but the lyrics lose all relatability when you watch Bieber strolling around his mansion in the song’s accompanying music video. Although we may all be ‘stuck’, we can never truly relate to these pop stars.
These unabashed displays of wealth, like Bieber’s music video, are less favoured during periods of economic disparities. When the gap between the poor and the wealthy appears to be ever-widening, many people grow to resent celebrities who flaunt their wealth. So, some musicians try to do the opposite, singing as though they are financially struggling just like us even though their lives are in fact more than comfortable. Think of ‘Time of Our Lives’ in which Ne-Yo sings about his late rent and Pitbull happily spends his last $20 on shots. Whilst we may relate to these lyrics, it is hard to imagine that Pitbull and Ne-Yo share these experiences given their multimillion-dollar net worths.
These absurd appeals at relatability are a desperate marketing strategy to make us care about pop stars who are otherwise quite uninteresting, especially compared to the previous generations of pop stars who captured our hearts through their unique creativity. Paradoxically, some fans will even care less about an artist once they appear too relatable as they sacrifice their elusive and endearing mysterious quality. It would be refreshing to see more celebrities that prioritise their craft over their likability and public image. If today’s pop stars cannot stop pretending that their lives are just like ours and embrace the aspirational spectacle of fame, then we may never see another iconic pop culture moment like Lady Gaga’s meat dress again.
“Lady Gaga Americano Manchester” by Andrea Wilson is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
