History shows that celebrities, living in the limelight of fans and media attention, aren’t afforded much privacy. The existence of social media further blurs the line between private life and public persona. So where do we draw the line? Recent media attention surrounding Ariana Grande suggests a boundary should be established sooner rather than later.

Upon the release of her song “God is a Woman,” Grande’s social media became inundated with comments and messages. The song and subsequent social media posts garnered positive attention from fans, but also opened the floodgates for a stream of negative reviews of Grande herself and her fiance, comedian and actor Pete Davidson. The comments were mostly related to Grande’s past relationship with late rapper Mac Miller and his comments on the Grande-Davidson engagement.

Davidson also began to see a great deal of harsh comments on his Instagram and Twitter, prompting him to delete both in late July. Davidson commented in a final post to his Instagram that the negative attention directed at him and Grande was detrimental to his well-being.

Shortly after, Grande turned off the ability to leave comments on her Twitter and Instagram posts. The singer revealed that she has dealt with a lot of hurtful comments while promoting her music, especially online, and states that removing herself from the drama has been beneficial for her mental health.

However, there has been an explosion of negative attention towards Grande in the weeks following Miller’s death by an apparent drug overdose. Fans of Miller point to Grande’s breaking off their relationship as the reason for his decline into further substance abuse. Grande has attempted to defend herself, stating that nothing she could do would “save him.” Grande also stated that shaming women for not fixing their significant other’s problems is manipulative and problematic. Regardless, Grande has removed herself from her social media presences and still faces backlash from music fans.

This series of events raises questions about how deep we are involving ourselves into our social media presences. How important is it to people that they respond to the actions and life choices of public figures? Is it detrimental to the mental health of said figures to be constantly visible on the Internet? How much privacy is needed to secure one’s well-being? Whatever the answer, it is clear that social media will continue to grow and people will learn to adapt their lives either around it or into it.

Expert Corner:
Dr. Conrad Kanagy, Department Chair of Sociology-Anthropology and Criminal Justice

Seeing as this issue deals heavily with social media, looking at Grande’s fan comments and her reaction from a social point of view seems fitting. Sociology can help us understand why people behave certain ways and focus on certain stories and events.

Dr. Conrad Kanagy, Department Chair of the Sociology-Anthropology and Criminal Justice Departments, briefly explained why fans or otherwise have fixated on Grande and choose to comment on her life through her social media. Kanagy answered the larger, looming question: why do we care so much about celebrities and celebrity news?

“We as people are consumers of just about everything these days. We consume the personal stories of others, especially celebrities, like we would consume food we buy at the grocery store,” Kanagy said.

Kanagy also expressed how social media makes this metaphorical “eating up” of other people’s gossip much, much easier.

“Social media is a method for people to publish their narratives, and if we look we’ll find that many of them are similar or the same,” Kanagy said.

“So people will latch on to the narratives of popular people — their failures, their successes, their transformations — in order to live vicariously through them.”

In situations of celebrity gossip, it is easy to forget that celebrities are average, everyday people with extraordinary jobs. So, how does harassment online affect people and how might it affect Grande?

“Unless she is an unusual person with incredible compartmentalizing skills, she’ll either absorb that commentary or react against it, defending herself from it,” Kanagy said.

It’s apparent that Grande has already taken the reaction method by turning off comments on her posts. Some have criticized her for this move, but could it have been the right choice?

“I would think back to what she, or you or I would do in this situation in order to be as productive as possible,” Kanagy said.

“If this is the specific step she needed to take to remain productive, then it was the right choice.”