“I can’t even imagine being at their level — it must suck.”
Post Malone said this a few days ago, about the astronomical fame levels Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have achieved. He added, “That’s so much pressure.”
To recap, he’s talking about two transcendent figures who are uncommonly famous and are at and approaching billionaire status, respectively. The pressures of fame aren’t just reserved for people on that echelon, though. There are just different tiers, but regardless of the level, it sounds like it’s often not a lot of fun.
That’s a well-worn thought, but it’s still one that can be hard to relate to: For those who haven’t experienced fame like this, the idea can feel abstract.
In 2019, Swift said, “Pop music can feel like it’s The Hunger Games, and like we’re gladiators. And you can really lose focus of the fact that that’s how it feels because that’s how a lot of stan Twitter and tabloids and blogs make it seem – the overanalyzing of everything makes it feel really intense.”
It can be tough to relate to Swift here. Not because what she’s saying is hard to understand or doesn’t have merit, but because she’s at such a different place than we are, and has been for decades. How similar is my life to Taylor Swift’s? We’re both 5’11” and have multiple cats we spend a lot of time thinking about. That’s about it. A lack of common ground makes it so it’s difficult to have empathy and truly consider what she’s saying about fame in relation to a life experience like mine. To most, Swift is a thing they see on social media and Spotify, a “figure,” not a person. Her existence is different and we could never understand.
What would help is something like the idea that half-jokingly gets thrown around in online conversations every four years: They should have an unexceptional no-name competing in the Olympics, to illustrate to us at home how tough the events really are, to add a relatable reference point. (Raygun doesn’t count.)
Just take a regular person, make them a massive pop star for a few months, and have them report back on the experience. Well, we have basically that now: Chappell Roan.
After a stint opening on Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour earlier this year, Roan released “Good Luck, Babe!” in April, which became her breakout single. From there, Roan turned into a big deal quickly: Just four months later, she drew what appeared to be one of the largest crowds in Lollapalooza history.
Roan had some success before “Good Luck, Babe!,” with her 2017 EP School Nights and 2023 album The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess, but at the start of 2024, she was functionally an ordinary person, able to do drugs in public and have bar-stranger make-outs without anybody caring beyond the normal amount.
Massive fame coming on so rapidly has been a significant shock for Roan, but the surprising part is how open she has been about it all.
Somebody in her position, unexpectedly rocketing into the public consciousness, might hesitate to complain about the upward trajectory they’re on, in fear of rocking the boat and losing momentum. But, Roan doesn’t seem to care about that. Her candor has offered a rare window for us faceless randos — like Roan herself mostly was, relatively speaking, just months ago — to have relatable perspective on what the pressures of fame are actually like.
Roan has publicly discussed the topic a number of times (here, here, here), but it has so far culminated in a pair of TikTok videos shared on August 19. In one video, she lays out a scenario, taking place between two ordinary people:
“If you saw a random woman on the street, would you yell at her from the car window? Would you harass her in public? Would you go up to a random lady and say, ‘Can I get a photo with you?’ And she’s like, ‘No, what the f*ck?’ And then you get mad at this random lady? Would you be offended if she says no to your time because she has her own time? Would you stalk her family? Would you follow her around? Would you try to dissect her life and bully her online? This is a lady you don’t know. And she doesn’t know you at all. Would you assume that she’s a good person, assume she’s a bad person? Would you assume everything you read about her online is true? I’m a random b*tch. You’re a random b*tch. Just think about that for a second, OK?”
She added in a follow-up video, “I don’t care that this crazy type of behavior comes along with the job, the career field I’ve chosen. That does not make it OK. […] I don’t want whatever the f*ck you think you’re supposed to be entitled to whenever you see a celebrity. […] I’m allowed to say no to creepy behavior, OK?”
Roan has been star-level famous for less than half a year and she’s already sick of it. That should tell us something. She’s surely not the only one, either. Imagine what it’d be like to be stopped every time you go do groceries. Imagine what it’s like to step out as Taylor Swift every day. Post Malone put it best: “It must suck.”
It won’t happen on a large scale because stans are going to stan, but hopefully some people see what Roan, a “random b*tch” like them, is saying and reconsider how they approach their next celebrity sighting. They’re not just “figures”: they’re people.