Celebrity culture has always been a thing in America, but it has gotten worse in the age of social media, and parasocial relationships are the byproduct of that increasing interest. Combine that with the false belief that the wealthy are somehow smarter or more in tune with everyday life simply because they are rich, and we have a toxic mix that makes even casual use of platforms like X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook feel like a drag.
Snoop Dogg is one of America’s most well-known and beloved celebrities, yet his Instagram mentions are currently full of fans expressing their displeasure with his decision to perform at a pre-inauguration event ahead of Donald Trump’s swearing-in as the 47th President of the United States.
The 53-year-old rapper was a featured performer at the Crypto Ball — which hailed Trump as “America’s first ‘crypto president’” — alongside fellow artists Rick Ross and Soulja Boy.
The online backlash against Snoop was immediate and swift. He reportedly lost 500,000 Instagram followers and was called a hypocrite, which caused me to wonder about our growing obsession over the actions of our favorite celebrities and entertainers. Weeks after the event, the anger hurled at Snoop is still ongoing, with many saying they were disappointed in his decision, while others were surprised he would choose to perform at an event honoring Trump at all, especially given the president’s ongoing attacks against diversity.
Snoop had a lot of smoke for people who chose to perform at Trump’s initial inauguration in 2017, going so far as to call anyone who took the stage an “Uncle Tom” and promising to “roast the f—” out of anyone who did.
This time around, the ladies of The View had thoughts on Snoop’s appearance at the Crypto Ball, with host Anna Navarro saying, “If you opposed and stood up against Trump in 2017, but you were there now. If you spoke up against Trump January 7, 2021, but you were there now applauding him like a trained seal — Donald Trump has not changed, you’ve changed.”
Snoop was not without his defenders, however. Some believe he was well within his right to perform at the event, and any criticism of him doing so was chalked up to “hate.”
Snoop fired back at his critics on Sunday, posting a video on Instagram in which he sat in his car smoking a blunt and listening to “Ain’t No Need to Worry” by The Winans.
“I got gospel in my heart right now,” the rapper said. “For all the hate, I’m gonna answer it with love. Y’all can’t hate enough on me. I love too much.”
He later added, “Get your life right. Stop worrying about mine. I’m cool. I’m together. Still a Black man. Still 100% Black.”
The same day Snoop Dogg was catching hell over his decision to perform, St. Louis rapper Sexyy Red came under fire for posting an AI-generated photo of herself with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that appeared to show them holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes while dancing in a club.
After the 26-year-old posted the now-deleted photo to her account on X, Bernice A. King — the youngest child of the slain civil rights leader and his wife Coretta Scott King — addressed the rapper directly, asking her to take the post down.
“This is intentionally distasteful, dishonoring, deplorable, and disrespectful to my family and my father, who is not here to respond himself because he was assassinated for working for your civil and human rights and to end war and poverty. Please delete,” King wrote.
King’s tweet drew a lot of attention, and many took the opportunity to attack Sexyy Red, calling her “ghetto,” “a degenerate,” and “trash,” among other things. Despite her feelings on Sexxy Red’s misguided post, King took issue with folks’ fierce response to the rapper and addressed it directly.
“Please don’t project your thoughts onto me. I don’t believe Sexyy Red to be a ‘degenerate,’ ‘ghetto,’ or ‘trash.’ I have spoken out in the past about the use of and comparison to either of my parents to denigrate other people,” she wrote.
While King also received criticism and derision for asking that the picture be taken down, Sexyy Red responded respectfully, apologizing for posting the image. King accepted her apology and thanked her.
Even with the two of them amicably resolving the issue, people watching the exchange on X continued to share their opinions on their actions, making character judgements about each woman despite not knowing them personally.
The overreaction to King and Sexxy Red grow out of the parasocial relationships we’ve built with celebrities over the years. It’s what has led many to believe they have a right to attack Angel Reese online in “defense” of Caitlin Clark (and vice versa). Though they don’t know them personally, social media provides immediate access to the thoughts, whims, and activities of people with celebrity status. Because social media users regularly engage with that content, they conflate that perceived proximity with an intimate personal relationship that does not exist.
When someone says, “I’m disappointed in Snoop,” their disappointment is rooted in their personal thoughts and experiences and has little to do with Snoop Dogg himself.
Snoop is worth an estimated $160 million, and that alone is enough to set him apart from the many fans and followers who may have something to say about his choices. Add to that the fact that he spent his teen years “running the streets and hustling dope.” His trajectory from poverty to wealth, while not necessarily unique in the rap game, is different from a lot of his fellow millionaires and from the average person who listens to his music.
Those disparate experiences mean that outside of what people see on social media and read or hear in Snoop’s interviews, there is not much for people to conclude from as far as his personal choices go.
They don’t know him.
Some have suggested that Sexyy Red is an industry plant, put in place to destroy the image of Black women, and her actions — including the content of her music and a questionably-named line of lip glosses — only serve to feed that notion. Beyond those criticisms, however, there is not much public knowledge of who she is and what she’s like in her everyday life.
Any cries of “she should know better” don’t account for all the things we don’t know about her. Maybe she doesn’t know better. Maybe she is that dense. Maybe her brain is as smooth as marble.
Maybe she is an industry plant and this stunt is just another in a long line of publicity-grabbing antics that keep her name on the tips of everyone’s tongues.
The truth is we don’t know Sexxy Red any better than we know Snoop Dogg, and we don’t know him any better than we know Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark or LeBron James and Bronny James or any other celebrity or athlete with whom we share a parasocial relationship.
We don’t know what experiences they’ve had that led them to this moment. We don’t know how smart they are and, it cannot be stressed enough, being rich does not equal being smart. A simple look at the politicians in office — and those they’ve surrounded themselves with — should drive that point home.
If there is anything we should leave behind this year, let it be parasocial relationships of any type, celebrity worship, and the idea that the wealthy are somehow more deserving or more intelligent than the rest of us.
Put down your phones, go outside, and touch grass.
You’ll feel better for it.
