Alongside that video that got over four million views, numerous fan photos and videos show the two celebs just ignoring the steady stream of fans walking by. Each fan appears to get less than a minute with the two celebs, and many take place in under 10 seconds in total. Sure, when you’re a huge celebrity, it must get tiresome to have to greet hundreds of random people who are obsessed with you, and they even probably all start to blur together at some point. But then again… Cyrus doesn’t have to hold meet-and-greet events. No celebrity does! They choose to interact with their fans in this way. But she and Campbell’s faux pas had the internet buzzing with debate, leaving many fans wondering if meet-and-greets are even worth the hundreds of dollars that fans cough up for only a few precious seconds with their idols.
Photo via @Claudia_cebolla
Controversial musician Matt Healy has an interesting hot take about meet-and-greets that tends to circulate after events like this. In it, he stares down a camera and straight-up dares celebrities to take cash right from their fan’s hands during meet-and-greets, insisting that they wouldn’t do it and that they’d lose their nerve. “Do a paid meet and greet where it’s 20 quid a meet-and-greet,” he says, “And every single fan, before they touch, you go ‘Let me see that 20.’ And you’ll do it for 2 minutes. And you’ll never f***in’ do it again. Cause you’ll realize it’s disgraceful.”
Photo via @musicindustrymentor
There are plenty of ways for celebrities to interact with their fans, though it would seem the larger the star, the less personal you’re going to get. If you’re an indie rock band with one album and you’re the opener on a limited US tour, you might really cherish the moments in these settings. This is how superfans are formed. If your band is looking for people to populate the front row of every show as they follow the band you’re opening for on tour from city to city, you have to appreciate these fans and get to know them by name. Some might even run their own indie blogs or fan social media accounts and write about you, which can be quite flattering. However, the more popular band, like the band that smaller band is opening for, requires fans to pay hundreds of dollars for a very brief interaction with them, their favorite musicians. This is all about the fan’s experience: The musician gets basically nothing emotional out of this exchange, and the fan gets to have a photo or a signed piece of merch to signify that they met their idol.
Celebs aren’t always quiet about their dislike of these events. Justin Bieber said that he was “mentally and emotionally exhausted to the point of d*pression” after a slate of 2016 meet-and-greets. He opted out of one event, and unfortunately for fans, they then realized their $900-$2,000 tickets got them… A photo opp with a cardboard cutout of Bieber. Yikes!
In a 2014 meet-and-greet, Ariana Grande insisted that a young fan delete extra photos of her, after spending just 30 seconds with the woman. Even though that fan had won a “hang with Ariana Grande,” Grande snapped a few photos with the woman, then walked away “without even saying goodbye.”
Photo via @nicolettemuroo
Avril Lavigne once did a super-awkward-looking event in 2014, where her security team requested that no one touch her. This made for a bunch of very funny viral photos where guests are several feet away from Lavigne (in response to the backlash, she later did away with the rule). And Demi Lovato is frequently described as impolite or cold by the fans who meet her—like one person who claimed Lovato threw her head back in relief when they exited. Another fan claimed they paid $500 for a ticket. The super fan told Lovato that playing her music had helped them get through hard times, only for Lovato to answer with an emotionless, “Ok.” That fan went on to write about the experience, “For $500, you could have a 20-second conversation with your fans at the very least. You barely acknowledged any of them. At least look at us.”
Photo via @muchmusic
Are fans expecting too much of celebrities? The latter fan was probably expecting Lovato to react with astonishment, gratefulness, or sympathy when confronted with a personal story. But they’re failing to realize that Lovato probably hears “your music saved me” sentiments all the time, maybe even every day. Even though it came off as impolite, Lovato wasn’t there to react to her fan’s proclamation. She was there to work, her role was snapping photos and saying hi, and she seems like she’s set hard boundaries in order to wall off fans from her private life.
That might be an unpopular opinion, but technically Lovato didn’t do anything wrong. When fans bring their own expectations about what these meet-and-greets may culminate in, they’re putting extra emotional baggage on the celeb. A lot of fans imagine a type of Hailey Bieber situation could happen to them. (In 2009, 12-year-old Hailey met Justin Bieber at a meet-and-greet. They reconnected in 2011 and began dating in 2015, and they’re now married with one child.) They dream of the celebrity finding their interaction so amazing that they want to stay in touch. They dream about forming an instant friendship or love at first sight. We all get crushes, but celebrity worship is a whole different ballgame, and celebs are wary of people who are overly intense.
Celebs also know that there’s a huge retail market for autographed items that are resold. So if they don’t sign some random item that a fan brings in, they run the risk of being labelled “impolite.” I highly doubt they want to be hugged, kissed, or have their body touched by hundreds of people they don’t know. They don’t want to be pressured into doing the TikTok dance trends of the week, be used as a prop for marriage proposals, or do random shoutouts to some fan’s cousin or girlfriend. They’re treated like a prop, and it’s no wonder these famous folks get exhausted with their fans, even the well-meaning ones.
Before social media meet-and-greets probably had way more of an impact. It was a huge flex back in the day to have a photo with a famous musician. In the not-so-distant past, celebs would talk exclusively to magazines or news outlets, but we could only get a tiny peek into their personal lives.
But these days, we have constant 24/7 access to our favorite celebrities. We know what our heroes are eating for breakfast, what city they’re in today, what music they’re listening to, and who’s in their entire circle of friends. Many of them have teams who post about or for them dozens of times per day, leaving nothing to the imagination. It’s the complete opposite of how it used to work with celebrities, and that can make things like meet-and-greets feel as dated as the horse and buggy.
Similar to tourists who take photos of the priceless famed painting, the Mona Lisa. Anyone at the Louvre can snap a perfect iPhone photo of it, or buy a postcard of it, or buy an incredibly detailed photo replication. The image’s saturation means that if you show a friend a photo you snapped of it, they’ll probably say, to quote a disinterested Demi Lovato, “Ok.” Celebrity meet-and-greets are starting to feel the same way. For both fans and the celebs they love, these nearly-meaningless photo-ops with oversaturated idols just aren’t worth the hype.
Photo via u/[deleted]
