This Week in Celebrity BS

I feel compelled to comment on two things that happened in the last several days. This would probably get more attention if I made YouTube videos or TikToks, but I can’t be bothered. I prefer to write. It’s easier to collect my thoughts this way. Plus my house is too noisy for videos. However, I have watched a number of videos and read a lot of comments on these things and I have thoughts. I pay little attention to celebrities but this time two things came across my radar because they involve one of my favorite authors and my hobby of crochet. So, here we are.

Taylor Swift

She was spotted out and about wearing a crochet dress. Everyone and their dog is making this now. Okay, maybe not their dog, but someone did make this dress for their dog. It turned out pretty cute. Not going to lie, I’ve jumped on the bandwagon to make this dress (not in these colours though) and I’m not a Swifty. However, I do have 3 different punk/metal versions of Blank Space on my Spotify. That’s as close as anyone will find me to listening to Taylor Swift. Right now I am all about crocheting my own clothes and it is a pretty cute dress.

I do have beef here. I have a lot of beef. Crochet has to be done by hand. It is not something that can be mass produced. People have to be employed to sit down with a crochet hook and yarn to spend hours making a crochet garment. This is not fast fashion. However, the fashion industry is making it fast fashion and exploiting workers in the process. Shein is the worst offender. Don’t come for me. I said what I said.

Taylor Swifts dress sales for right around $120. For someone to sit down and make this, assuming they were making minimum wage, it would cost at least $300 in labour. That doesn’t count the cost of supplies. Let’s do a sloppy breakdown of costs. I say sloppy because I don’t know what their supplies cost. What I do know, is that for someone to make this dress at home it would cost about $60 in supplies, and that is using an economical 100% cotton yarn. Most companies do a 55% markup on products. So assuming $60 in supplies, that is half the cost of this dress. That leaves $60 to cover the worker who made it, the company profit, and any overhead. My degree is in English, not math, so I am going to over simplify this and leave out company profit and overhead in this next figure. It’s taking the average crocheter about 20 hours to make this dress. Dividing $60 by 20 gives $3.00. So what this means is that whoever is sitting in a factory somewhere making this dress is making less than $3.00. Remember I didn’t account for any kind of profit or overhead. I also did not account properly for the cost of materials since we know that the company probably paid less than $60 in supplies. The dress is acrylic and we know the company got a discount for buying in bulk. This makes little difference though. The workers were still exploited and made peanuts making this dress.

Everyone that crochets knows this. We know what goes into making things, the skill, the supplies, the time. So much time. I’ve had a couple people tell me she was probably dressed by a stylist. If she was, her stylist should keep in mind how wearing unethically made clothing would reflect on who they are dressing. If Taylor picked the dress herself, shame on her. She has the money to pay someone their worth for making this.

What is even more disgusting is the fashion sites writing about this dress. I mean, the dress has gone viral. These sites are linking to knock offs – meaning they cost even less – as well as other crochet dresses that cost as little as $35. These fashion blogs are indirectly promoting the exploitation of workers. Everyone that is willing to pay Amazon $35 for a crochet dress that should cost at least $200 is complicit in this exploitation. The demand for lost cost hand made items means workers don’t get paid a fair wage. They are working in sweatshops for long hours getting paid almost nothing. And yet, people are willing to pay top dollar for name brand/designer label items lining the pockets of corporations but complain that someone at a craft fair is charging $65 for a tote bag they made by hand. People deserve to get paid for their work.

Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #10: Greed is eternal.
Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #221: Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success… don’t hesitate to step on them.

~ Star Trek: Deep Space 9

Neil Gaiman

Sigh.

While Taylor Swift’s dress caused me anger and disbelief, this one caused an existential crisis. I still don’t know how to feel about this. He’s been accused of sexual assault by two different women who he was in brief relationships with. The short version of the story is both women were much younger than him – both in their early 20’s (one a fan, the other a babysitter). Both gave consent and then later regretted it.

As a folklorist, how people talk about this is something I am interested in. That is why I spent more time that I should have reading comments across social media about this and I have many thoughts. I laughed when the rap beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar was called a ‘folklore emergency’, but how people talk about these things say a lot about society and folk groups (fans vs non-fans, sexual assault victims vs. those that have not experienced it, men vs. women…you get the idea).

First, I need to bring prestige bias into things. I’ve gone on about this several times but it’s important.  For those that don’t know what this is, as a society we care about what celebrities do because we see them as successful, no matter how successful we are ourselves. We still see them as more successful and at the top of societal ladder. This is because of how society developed and faulty evolution. It is what it is. We want to emulate these people because of this. Taylor Swift’s crochet dress is a good example of this and the number of people making it. As a society, we also take a certain kind of pleasure when celebrities fall. We forget at that moment that we, as a society, made them famous, that we gave them the clout they have. Our love for them is conditional. There is a long list of unspoken rules they are not allowed to break, even if we, ourselves, break them. It’s really quite hypocritical. We also neglect the fact that these are human beings with faults and emotions and imperfections.

Now, a lot of the conversation around Gaiman has mostly been about the abuse of power. This is something that needs to be talked about, it’s something that a lot of people don’t realize happens, especially when they are involved. The argument is that Neil, being a celebrity, and these young women, being every day people, gave Neil the upper hand in the relationships. People are saying these young women could not give consent because of this. There is also language that paints them as underage. This is problematic. It paints a different picture and feeds the rumor mill.

As a side note, I feel like these same people would have a heart attack if they watched any documentary about the music scene in the 80’s. The number of fans these rock stars went through is incredible. If this kind of thing happened today, everyone would be questioning power dynamics, but every one of these women were there willingly. Times have indeed changed, but my point to all this is that this kind of thing happens more often than anyone thinks. Celebrities have relationships of all kinds with fans and other “normal” people. Those people who saying that celebrities should not engage with ‘normal’ people are setting unrealistic standards. Yes, actors and writers and musicians have their professional circles. A lot of them also have relationships with ‘normal’ people. For example, during his life, my dad was good friends with Alice Cooper. I have a friend who went to school with and is still good friends with a certain famous alternative rock musician. People are people.

People are also complex as are relationships. Life isn’t black and white like people want it to be.

Everything that I know about this story has come via social media and people who have listened to the podcast the information was given on. I have issues with this. This story was not released by any legit news source. It came out on a podcast that is behind a paywall.

A paywall.

You have to pay to get the story. The story is a money making endeavor for a podcast host. Those who have listened to it and are talking about it are driving traffic to the podcast, either directly or indirectly, and in turn the podcast hosts are making money. Really, the host could have picked any celebrity with the same clout as Gaiman.

Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #9: Opportunity plus instinct equals profit. 

~ Star Trek: Deep Space 9

The fact that the story is behind a paywall doesn’t change what happened. However, it changes how we talk about it and what we believe. No one has pressed charges against Gaiman. Both of the women have said they gave consent and it was only after talking to outsiders about their relationship with Gaiman did they have regrets and decided it shouldn’t have happened. Gaiman has denied any wrong doing and outside of that has pretty much been quiet on the subject. His ex-wife has not spoken out about anything (I looked).

I have read things, and I don’t know how true they are, about a NDA, suicide “threats” on the part of Gaiman, some unconventional sexual activities, and how none of the text messages regarding these relationships have not been released. I have no desire to listen to the podcast. First, because it is behind a paywall. That is sus AF to me (I know, such professional writing right there). Anyone can say anything they want on a podcast, and because it’s behind a paywall and accessible only to those willing to pay for it – from my understanding Rachel Johnson, the podcast host, is not someone I would want to support. It should also be noted she has strong political ties in the UK and has been involved in politics herself. She is also an anti-trans activist and her podcast staff are the only ones who have access to the women involved. Call me cynical, but there is some kind of agenda here, especially since this aired the day before an election.

Second, people’s sex lives are their own business unless something illegal has happened. At that point you waive your rights to privacy. I don’t want to know about the sex lives of my friends, and I certainly don’t want to know about the sex lives of strangers, even ones in the public eye.

But, having gotten my information from social media, I don’t know how much is true, exaggerated, or just downright false. I do not know how much media literacy these people have or how well they are able to think critically. Everything people say on the net have to be taken with a grain of salt. Yes, we should listen to and believe victims. However, I don’t think these women are true victims. They were young women who did a thing and then later regretted it. It is the listeners of this podcast that are calling them victims citing an imbalance of power in a relationship. No one has said that the women involved have called themselves victims.

All of this has accomplished leaving a stain on the image of Gaiman. Fans are already turning against him, and many of them have gotten their information the same place I have, from commentary across social media. My opinions of Gaiman have not changed. This may change if something more concrete comes out. Knowing about his sex life does make me look at him a bit differently. I have known from day one the man isn’t perfect and makes mistakes, after all he was involved with Scientology at one point.