A little respect for celebrities please!

Let me start this post with a little anecdote from my life. As you might be aware of I am huge movie fan and of course I have a lot of actors I admire.  There is one I admire in particular, so you can say he is my favourite actor. A few years back I went to London for a week and imagine my excitement when I saw that he was performing at the West End. So I went to the theatre and was lucky enough to get a ticket for the show that evening. When I walked out of the theatre after buying my ticket my heart almost stopped as I saw him walking into my direction. My first instinct was to ask him for an autograph, but then I noticed he was talking on his cell phone and believe it or not I didn't say anything and let him walk into the stage door.

A lot of people whom I told this story to thought I was stupid and said I had wasted an opportunity, but I stick to my decision, because I wanted to respect his privacy. I don't know who he was talking to on the phone, maybe he was faking the call because he was having a bad day and wasn't ready for "fan-talk" or maybe it was a really important phone call e.g. his mother was in the hospital. In this case: How would you feel if during such a phone call one of your customers would annoy you with a dull question? Because let's face it: Fans are an artist's customers in a way. Because we buy a product they make. You might not like it, but down the line that is what it is. Of course with the arts a lot of passion and emotions are involved but in essence this is correct. 

Let's think of a different scenario. I guess most people have had a really bad break up at one point or another in their life, at least I know I have. All you try after this is to heal, to get over it and in a way to forget. So put yourself now in the situation where everyday someone you don't even know is constantly asking you about this personal experience, if you say you don't want to talk about it, that get aggressiv and follow you around. People hide around your house with cameras and try to get a picture of you, hoping you are having a breakdown and to catch you with puffy eyes from crying and for them ideally drunk. Isn't that a nightmare? 

A lot of you might think now, well they chose a life in the spotlight. No! These people chose a profession they love, no matter if it is being a musician, actor, singer, politician or athlete. I guess none of these people thought: Hey, it is my lifelong dream to give up my privacy!

Still a lot of celebrities try to be friendly with fans and even to get in touch with them e.g. via twitter and honestly I think this is awesome! Nobody thought something like this possible about 20 years ago. This is why tt pains me even more to see how some so called "fans" treat these celebrities. Mean messages for not replying are the most harmless things there. What are these people thinking? If someone has 150,000 followers and takes the time to respond to maybe 10 a day I think it is really nice of them. Because honestly: How many of you take the time to respond on twitter to people you don't know? 

My biggest fear is that with all the tabloids and gossiping we will reach the point where execptionally talented artists or athletes will prefer no to exhibit their talents to avoid having to live like this. Then all of us would loose. So please before buying a tabloid or asking someone for an autograph when he or she is obviously not up for it (e.g. talking on the phone or in a hurry) ask yourself: How would I feel in this situation and show a little respect!