I got a lot of responses about Chapel Roan
talking about how people are inappropriate with her
and how she doesn’t like it
when people scream out their car window at her,
how she reserves the right to say no to a picture and say no to a hug.
Someone else said this shouldn’t be controversial,
but people who think Chapel is ungrateful
because of her setting boundaries with fans
are what’s wrong with stand culture.
That’s basic consent. No means no.
I had another one that said that Chapel is not ready to handle fame.
Who knows if that will last.
But at this current moment,
Chapel is it. And I think that Chapel was not ready for that.
She was ready for it in the sense that she’s able to arrive on stage
as this fully fledged pop star
who seems like she’s been doing it forever.
And I think she wasn’t ready to have that much positive
attention and success come that way
for her. She was always an underdog.
You know, it was not easy for her to arrive where she is now.
She had a lot of label troubles.
She was dropped. She had to pursue a lot of this independently.
She had to finance some of it herself.
I think that she was expecting to have
to slog it out for a lot longer than she is now.
She is in a position where she theoretically could take over the world.
The Question of can she handle it is a more thorny issue.
I think she’s probably tired because she has been touring relentlessly,
literally since the guts tour started in 2023,
Chapel has been on the road.
If you think about it, her daily life has stayed the same.
She gets up, she’s on a bus,
she does her makeup, she goes,
she does the show and then rinse and repeat.
She’s very, very busy in the way that like a new artist always is
because you’re doing
everything that you can to get your name out there.
But I think that having her blow up like this
while she was in the middle of this very grueling,
repetitive schedule has created a big disconnect between like
her daily life and who she feels like she is
versus who Chapel Roan has become in the popular image
and popular culture. And with that
comes her surprise at suddenly being treated like an a list celebrity.
I think she always thought that she could kind of like
put her hair back and throw on a cap and go to a yoga class.
In fact, I watched an interview with her
kind of when I think feminine pronoun came out
and she talked about how it was cool that she still could look,
she felt like Hannah Montana at times.
And it’s certainly not that way anymore.
She’s extraordinarily recognizable,
especially to young people.
And the question of should you respond to fans,
Doing stuff like that is an interesting one.
I think that going out of her way to like set a boundary on TikTok
unprompted, it seems by any specific incident is an interesting choice.
I don’t know that it’s the best choice for her because,
you know, Taylor Swift has never once complained about the fans
or ask the fans to stop being invasive.
And that’s not because she doesn’t want them to be.
And that’s not because she doesn’t have boundaries.
It’s because she and her family have always understood
from the start of her career
that there is no Taylor Swift without this incredibly invasive
parasocial relationship.
You have to court it in order for your music to be successful
and for your project to be interesting.
But you also have to draw boundaries
so that you can remain a person aside from that.
So I think that like
complaints about that are probably best done like with a therapist
or like with your other famous friends who get it.
It lands differently when it’s a 13 year old scrolling on TikTok.
And then
the only message that they’re gonna take away from that video
of Chapel being like,
this is invasive, this is inappropriate,
this is not how you act.
I don’t care if this is how other people behave,
you won’t behave like this with me.
The 13 year old nevertheless is gonna stop and say,
Chapel just said that she doesn’t wanna meet me
and take a Picture with me and hug me
and it you and I know in our brains that that’s very reasonable.
But the 13 year old says well then why am I do
why am I why am I doing the hot to go dance
and like re sharing all these videos and writing really hard for her
when she doesn’t care about me.
You have to maintain the illusion that you care about your fans.
And I think that Chapel is like so real.
She’s too real. She’s hyper real.
She is you know, the pop star that we need.
She is the DIY pop star that is suddenly like an a list celebrity.
And I think that that friction is wearing on her.
I think that it’s tiring. I think that it’s probably also scary
having her family getting contacted.
Like these are not good things
and these are parts of stand culture that are bad.
But I don’t really see how you can change it at this point.
It’s kind of like the cats out of the bag.
And if you want to be a pop star,
this is what comes with the territory.
Every job has an occupational hazard.
This happens to be the one for this job.
And you also have to look at like the upside.
What is the upside of having to deal with that?
The upside is you make a lot of money.
The upside is you have creative control.
Theoretically the upside is You get to do what you love
that a lot of people would kill to do
but can’t because they’re not in the same position as you.
It is a blessing and a curse.
And I, I think that the only way to deal with it,
because you can’t undo fame,
you can’t press the go back button.
The only thing you can do is fight it or kind of ignore it.
And I think that Taylor lives on the side of ignoring it and fighting
it really never ends well for anyone.
And so I hope for Chappell that she is able to draw boundaries
and I hope that it doesn’t alienate her audience
to hear her doing that.
I do think that people’s attitude towards Chappell is parasocial
in the sense that they feel protective of her,
which is also a delusion because you don’t know her, right?
Like, it’s just as delusional to run up to someone on the street
hugging them as it is to lecture other people in TikTok comments
about how we shouldn’t be expecting anything from her
because you feel as though you know her
or that you’re close enough to her to speak on her behalf.
It, the parasocial thing like goes in so many different directions.
It’s difficult to negotiate.
And, you know,
we pray for trouble. I love her.
I wanna see her win. And I think she just needs to keep it real.