This post started out very differently, but I had a realization about halfway through that it's not really in anyone's best interest for me to tear down individual celebrities for the ignorance tied to their names.
For one thing, it's a disturbingly tiny world, and given the brilliance and ambition of some of my friends and colleagues, I might one day find myself six degrees or less from the celebrity I once trashed.
Second of all, I have also become increasingly aware in recent years how unnervingly little famous people actually have to do with the words attributed to them. This may come as a shocker to some of you, but many of those heartfelt quotes and intimate tell-alls are more likely the work of publicists, agents, ghost writers, managers, conservators, dog trainers... basically, anyone but the pretty person who allegedly said or wrote the words.
So while I don't think celebrities are mindless, helpless drones, regurgitating the information fed to them by a crafty team of communication experts, and that they do of course have the agency and authority to articulate their own thoughts, I also don't think it's entirely fair to hold them accountable or responsible for some of the really stupid stuff that gets tied to their names. So... I'm sorry Maria Menounos.
Rather than talk major smack about a certain supermodel who wrote a certain article for a certain well-known online media outlet recently, I will focus my frustration and outrage on the "seven all-natural beauty tips" she (or whoever wrote the piece for her) doled out to us common folk.
The problem I have is not necessarily with this lovely lady, but with the seemingly never-ending cycle we're caught in whenever these damaging, destructive, inaccurate, ridiculous "healthy-living" tips are circulated. I won't even touch the fact that any "beauty" tips coming from a supermodel that are not just thinly-veiled paid endorsements for high-end products are not actual tips applicable to the average human.
Supermodels are, for all intents and purposes, genetic freaks who comprise a (thankfully) teeny sliver of the population. I firmly believe that they could all eat non-organic garbage for breakfast, cancel their standing boot camp session with Gunnar Peterson, roll around in ugly dust, and they would still be considered "beautiful," and "fit," and all these other descriptors we've been led to believe are the result of hard work, discipline, restraint, etc. Nope, they've got supermodel DNA and that's why they look the way they do. Case closed. No amount of raw, cold-pressed kale juice and Pilates sessions will land most of us on the cover of Vogue. I know that's harsh, I'm sorry. I bet you're cool in other ways though.
Anyway, back to this article. Again, I don't want to rake the author over the coals, but most of the content in the piece was so frighteningly toxic and peppered with disordered thinking, it freaked me out to think how many impressionable minds had access to it. I won't take you through each and every all-natural tip, but I have to comment on a few of the freakiest recommendations. Allow me to curate some choice quotes while inserting my real-time reactions in parentheses:
- "Wear a trash bag the next time you work out." (NO, NO, NO. Please don't do this. The best case scenario is that you'll lose a ton of water weight that you'll promptly gain back once you ingest liquids, and the worse case scenario is that you'll cause some serious electrolyte imbalances and suffer some sort of cardiac problem. Also, you will not look like Bradley Cooper.)
There are more gems to pull from that post, but my brain parts have actually liquefied, so I need some time to re-animate myself. You can track down the original piece if you so choose, but I don't recommend it. And again, I don't hold the author solely responsible for the migraine-inducing claims made in the piece. I would just really love to institute a ban on these kinds of articles. Ideas for how to make that happen?
Curious to read more? This piece is a modified excerpt from the author's original blog post. Check out her website at michellekmedia.com.