While superstars like Beyonce and Marilyn Monroe found stardom in the traditional sense, the Kardashians gained popularity through a whole new medium. Here’s how the entertainment industry has shifted from its traditional roots to glorifying “everydayness” through reality TV and YouTube.
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Do you ever feel like you’re friends with celebrities you don’t know? Here are some psychological and historical reasons why that may not be as strange or uncommon as you think.
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When Brandon Farbstein first joined Instagram in 2014, he was 14 and optimistic. Farbstein was born with a rare form of dwarfism, and he wanted to use the photo-sharing site to educate people about his condition—to, as he told me, “show people a glimpse into my life and inspire people.”
Soon enough, though, the hateful messages started coming: death threats, expletive-laden comments about his appearance, worse. A meme page put his face on Hitler’s body. Multiple accounts popped up with the explicit purpose of taunting him. His house was swatted. When he does a live video, the insults float onscreen, fast and furious. “It’s been hard to keep my composure,” Farbstein told me. After trolls started posting pictures of him in the hallways at his high school, he started to fear for his safety. Eventually, he left and finished high school online.
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