Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, And The Anatomy Of The Celebrity Backlash

When you make it big in the entertainment world, especially if you are a female pop star, people are desperate to bring you down. Ask Madonna. Ask Lady Gaga. You can even ask Mariah Carey. However, today’s celebrity backlash plays itself out on social media — which can result in huge career damage to its victims.

The most brutal backlash in recent memory has been aimed at Ariana Grande, who acted like a spoiled brat in a donut shop. However, judging from the reaction, you would think Grande murdered a baby or even a puppy. Billboard, who recently wrote an article on the topic, thinks the whole Ariana Grande backlash bit was overplayed.

“What might once have been a not exactly commendable but trivial incident of young, romance-besotted obnoxiousness becomes, in the hyper-efficient 2015 ecosystem of scandal and reaction, a frenzy.”

Taylor Swift is also entering her backlash phase. She hasn’t done anything wrong, but since we expect our pop stars to experience a backlash, we sometimes have to invent one. Salon insists one is happening.

“A backlash, though made by human beings, can feel like a part of the natural world and its inexorable forces. And that seems to be what’s happening right now with Taylor Swift.”

Salon believes Taylor Swift had absolutely no right to criticize Nicki Minaj’s Twitter rant on being snubbed for VMA nominations because of racism and her body. Taylor Swift did apologize to Nicki Minaj and said she misunderstood the point Nicki Minaj was trying to make. But that doesn’t seem to matter.

Part of the so-called backlash against Taylor Swift is that in today’s social justice warrior climate, Taylor Swift is seen as having “a lot of privilege.” Some also believe that Taylor Swift isn’t quite the underdog she has made herself out to be. Suddenly, stories are appearing everywhere that are deriding Taylor Swift as being mean. The Sydney Morning Herald talks about Swift’s latest alleged crime.

“In February this year, Edward Droste said he had a nasty encounter with a celebrity who was arrogant, rude, mean and calculated in a series of since-deleted tweets.”

Never mind that this could be all made up. Never mind that this could all be a huge misunderstanding between Droste and Taylor Swift. The public backlash bandwagon jumped on it like a frog on a fly. Let’s hope Taylor Swift doesn’t read Twitter a lot, because tweets against her have become downright depressing.

The next time you feel like joining the celebrity backlash wagon against a certain celebrity, ask yourself why. Does it make you feel better about yourself? Are you really helping the world’s problems? Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift may not be saints, but nobody should ever expect them to be in the first place.

[Photos by Michael Loccisano and Neilson Barnard / Getty Images]