I knew as soon as I started quoting from T.I. that this post was going to be a mix of seriousness and foolery. Which is alright with me – I like to keep it random.
While I have a lot of guilty pleasures and try to stay informed of the major headlines in popular culture, I would say that I’m really not celeb-obsessed. And I try to separate the celebrity the person that I don’t know from the representative that they show the public in the media.
But with our celeb-obsessed culture, and celebrities doing everything from blogging to tweeting on Twitter, I can understand why some people think that they really “know” a celeb. Recently I caught myself doing this, and had to put myself in check.
The background:When the drama between Nas and Kelis as they hit splitsville entered the media, followed by her accusations that he wasn’t trying to provide 
for their unborn child, I thought to myself: “That’s so sad; I thought Nas was different.”
I had a thing for Nas for a while, and was a bit upset when he married Kelis. Like I was ever really gonna have a chance with him in the first place… But anyway, I had fallen into the trap of mixing the celebrity with the person. I didn’t know Nas, never met Nas, and didn’t have any place thinking that the cheating/non-support/accusations that Kelis was throwing his way were out of his character.
Similarly, when I read on a few gossip sites that Morgan Freeman was in some type of incestuous relationship with his step-granddaughter, I was a bit disturbed. (I still refuse to believe this story by the way).
I really like Morgan Freeman as an actor, and “Lean on Me” is literally one of my all time faves. I can quote it pretty much from beginning to end and love to sing along during the auditorium scene. So this news was disturbing on a couple of levels. Not Mr. Clarke!! Noo!
But as I started thinking about my reasons for not believing this story (besides the fact that I was waiting on more substantial sources to back it up), I realized I had fallen into the trap again. I don’t know Morgan Freeman, never met him. So what basis did I really have to believe this could be out of character? Who knows? It could be true. Still disturbing, but moving on.
Which leads to the question, why do we put character generalizations on people we don’t really know into our minds?
It’s the same as when someone commits a grisly crime, and then their neighbors (who never actually ever talked to them, but just waved to them once or twice while driving home) get all over TV, talking about, “I never would have thought! That just seems so out of character!” You didn’t know that person, never even had a conversation past “Hello, how are you doing,” and yet you know them enough to come out talking about your disbelief? Hmph.
Craziness.
Why do you think people put it into their minds that they really know people that they don’t know? Have you ever fallen into the trap?
