How often do you see your favourite influencer or celebrity talk about social issues?
Whether it’s on the Israel and Gaza conflict, the Los Angeles riots over US immigration and mass deportation, or the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, these events have sparked a wave of pressure on celebrities and influencers to speak up.
So, it begs the question: Do celebrities and influencers have a responsibility to speak on social issues?
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To settle this debate, we spoke to two academics and someone in the entertainment industry.
“We should always be responsible. Our responsibility in some sense, is also proportional to the kind of audience that we have in front of us,” said lecturer in data analytics at the University of Sydney, Francesco Bailo.
Bailo said influencers, specifically, have created “a sort of intimacy with their audience” and with that comes an expectation of authenticity.
These people share their lives, bringing viewers into their homes, their travels and their families.
‘Authenticity’ is key
So, subconsciously we can develop an expectation that they should they also share “what they think, what they’re doing and, and their opinions”.
“People are expecting authenticity and are expecting intimacy. And you can’t have intimacy if you don’t have authenticity.”
“As soon as people think that the authenticity was actually constructed, so was not authentic at all, then of course you have a huge backlash.”
“So, when it comes to influencers, the whole bubble is extremely productive for them … but also is extremely fragile.”
Senior lecturer in government and international relations at the University of Sydney, Peter Chen described this as a “parasocial relationship” where the audience feels like the people they are watching have become their friends.
Dr Chen said this kind of relationship can put a lot of pressure on influencers.
Pressure to share opinion
But, he believes, they’re “not obligated necessarily to speak” and “that it is extremely contextual”.
“The first thing we should say to ourselves is, are we holding other people to a standard we wouldn’t hold ourselves to?”
Dr Chen also said that “it’s a requirement for their audiences to be informed too” and even though we expect influencers and celebrities to speak out, “we don’t have to accept what they say”.
Now, let’s pivot to someone who’s in the industry.
“The question that influencers and people with platforms need to ask themselves is, if ‘I’m only sharing something, do I actually give a f–k?’,” Aussie comedian and influencer Lewis Spears said.
“You cannot care about everything. It’s impossible. You can’t. There are so many horrible things happening every single minute of every single day. It’s impossible to care about everything.”
Spears has received backlash and criticism for jokes he has made in the past, and says he often gets pressured into speaking out on issues.
“I will always try to only speak when I have something to say or something that I think is impactful.”
“Because personally, I’ve certainly shared things about issues that I care about, but I’ve also attended rallies. I’ve also donated money.”
“So, I’m not saying that people should not raise awareness, but people should ask themselves, ‘why am I raising awareness?’.”
The Rock and Oprah backlash
Spears said when celebrities and influencers are pressured into sharing information on social issues, this can lead to misinformation and, ultimately, can “dilute” the message rather than fix the problem.
“I think shaming people who don’t lend their voices to a certain cause when they have lent their voices to something else that they do care a lot about and that they do understand, seems silly.”
“Awareness is great, but it doesn’t do things. People who do things, do things.”
In 2023, American personalities Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Oprah Winfrey received backlash after launching the People’s Fund of Maui fund, to raise money for people who were affected by the deadly wildfires in Lahaina and Kula in Maui, Hawaii.
In a joint Instagram post, Johnson and said they had donated $US10 million and asked others to contribute further saying, “we thank you in advance for your contribution”.
However, many were quick to criticise the fund questioning why they were asking others to give money instead of donating more themselves.
Johnson acknowledged this backlash, saying he “could have been better”.
Bailo urges the audience to be “more critical” of the content received from celebrities and influencers.
“I’m not saying we need to distrust everything because that will be the wrong response, but we need to be more critical in terms of understanding the content that we are receiving, also in the context of the source of that content.”
“So, what is problematic is not that influencers are expressing their opinions, of course, they should feel free to say whatever they want.
“But at the same time, again, they’re not journalists.”
Dr Chen said celebrities and influencers who speak on issues they are ill-informed about is “harmful” to not only their reputation, but to the causes they speak out about.
And the infamous ‘Imagine video’ during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic could be a “cringeworthy example” of this.
The video orchestrated and posted by actress Gal Gadot, is two-minutes long and features a number of celebrities, including Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig and Natalie Portman.
The A-list stars sang, in acapella, line-by-line to the song Imagine by John Lennon, intending to be in solidarity, with Gadot captioning the video with, “we are in this together, we will get through it together”.
Many criticised this as being tone-deaf, as most of the celebrities were filming from their multi-million mansions whilst singing lines such as “imagine having no possessions”.
Actor Chris O’Dowd, who was in the video, told Louis Theroux in his BBC podcast Grounded, that the backlash was “justified”.
“It was just a bunch of people running around thinking they had to do something, when we really didn’t,” O’Dowd said.
“We just needed to chill out and just take everything in. So, I think any backlash was fairly justified.”
Dr Chen said, “at the end of the day, it is hard always to determine, are people genuine when they say things?”
“Speech is easy. You are your actions. So, what have you done?”
