On October 15th, social media users were cyber bullying former One Direction star, Liam Payne. 24 hours later, they were posting tributes and sharing their grief over his loss with the world.
Coming up: “Where was the love before the loss? Where was the justice? Where was the defense? Because now, now that something bad has happened, it’s all about love and standing up for what’s right.”
Watch the video:
Liam Payne Dead at 31: What Got Us Here?
The minute the news broke, Liam Payne’s social media became flooded with comments from heartbroken fans and other social media users who expressed their shock over this sudden horrific loss. But it is quite the contrast to the comments that had flooded his posts up until just the day before. Comments from obviously unbothered unsympathetic users who were criticizing, casting stones, and shaming.
At this point, I think we can all say that we are all aware of the dangers of media and fame, unless you’re to be completely frank, ignorant and naive. And forgive me if any of this comes across as harsh in any way at all. But this is a serious topic that needs to be talked about and understood–the power of media and the responsibility that comes with wielding such power. And the accountability that needs to be held that has not been held to those who abuse such power.
A Similar Pattern Among Child Stars in Hollywood
Liam Payne was only 14 years old when he began his journey to stardom, trying out for the show The X Factor in 2008, and the rest is history. When you think about it, he went from an everyday, ordinary boy to one of the biggest names in the world, idolized and worshiped by teen girls as if he were a god. Having every move of his is monitored and criticized by the media, every success recorded and praised–and yet at the same time, every mistake, every misstep magnified and broadcast to a hungry, watching world. One can only imagine the effects all of these things might have on the mind of a kid.
A fourteen year-old Liam Payne during his first X Factor audition in 2008.
I’m sure we have all heard the countless stories of former child stars and the experience that they had growing up in the industry. Many of them say the same thing, that their protection was seldom a priority because the individuals who should have been looking out for them and protecting them were instead cashing in on them. And Liam Payne was no exception to that.
Various celebrities who experienced exploitation and/or abuse as child-stars.
For years, the media exposed and exploited his struggles, his life, his mistakes–just like they do with every well known individual whose name they can profit off of. And guess what? The public, the people, as they always do, ate it up. Because here’s the dark truth surrounding media: people love celebrity gossip. People love rumors–because it’s something that can make them feel better about themselves. It’s sad, but it’s true.
The Bigger Picture Here: Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing
Here’s the thing about media and the public–I feel like a lot of people have this image of media where media is almost a middleman. Middle ground. Level ground–even a bridge between two groups of opposite extremes. On one side, you have the average ordinary everyday individuals. And on the other, you have the rich, the famous, the “elite”. But the media somehow becomes this leveling field, this middleman that brings down the “extraordinary” for the “benefit” of the everyday, ordinary individuals. And again, people eat it up. But the truth about media, if you haven’t learned already: they are not your friend.
The media fuels and sells the lie that celebrities belong to a group of more worthy individuals, while the rest of the world is just average. And then to make you feel better, they sell you cheap media gossip about those individuals, rumors that they write up, expose secrets and the exploitation of human beings that they serve to you on a silver platter.
Various toxic magazine and tabloid covers from the 2000s.
They manipulate, they deceive, and then they sit back and watch while you do the rest of their work for them: buy into it, believe it, spread it–widening the gap of division and increasing your desire and your appetite for more. It’s a toxic, vicious cycle where nobody wins except for the media who was profiting off of all of it.
The True Cost of Fame
In recent years, Liam had been vocal about his struggles mentally and also with substance abuse. He had entered rehab, and after coming out of it, he had actually posted a YouTube video addressing his fans and his followers about the entire process. Unsurprisingly, Liam had attributed many of his struggles to his experience in the spotlight at a young age. When talking about his teenage years in the spotlight, he said, “you’ve got no control over your life. That’s why I lost complete control of everything.”
Liam Payne/YouTube
I think many of us, at least I would think that many of us understand why people even abuse different substances. And if you don’t already know, it is often to escape. To escape their pain, their loneliness, their reality, their life, their mistakes, failures. It’s something to fill some kind of hole, some kind of void. People who are content and at peace with their lives don’t typically abuse–because why would you want to escape a life that you enjoy and love? Substance abuse is always an indicator of some kind of pain that needs healing.
The Harmful effects of stardom on kids in the spotlight
According to Today, in 2019, Liam had opened up about the lonely aspects of fame and said that he began drinking to help process his feelings: “He noted that the repetitive nature of touring was challenging on days where he wasn’t feeling mentally well.” In Liam’s words: “It’s almost like putting the Disney costume on before you step on stage. And underneath the Disney costume, I was pissed quite a lot of the time because there was no other way to get your head around what was going on. I mean, it was fun. We had an absolute blast. But there were certain parts of it where it just got a little bit toxic.”
One Direction/Facebook
The article continued: “The singer also recalled the heavy drinking he would do while stuck in his hotel room during tours: ‘When we were in the band, the best way to secure us because of how big it got was just lock us in our rooms. And of course, what’s in the room? Mini bar. So at a certain point I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to have a party for one.’ And that just seemed to carry on for many years in my life.'”
“It’s the price you pay for fame”
Of course, it’s very easy for people to dismiss the pain, the struggles, and the exploitation that celebrities or public figures face because of this widely accepted and normalized notion that “it’s the price you pay for fame.” This is not only a toxic mindset, but it is completely inhumane. What it does is it reduces a person’s worth to their title and their status, stripping away their humanity once they’ve reached a certain level of notoriety, invalidating their struggles and the unfair treatment that they face. It’s wrong to think that anyone, celebrity or not, should be subject to such invasive scrutiny simply because they chose to chase a dream, they succeeded, and now the world knows their name.
Honestly, it brings Princess Diana to mind, who we all know was constantly harassed at a ridiculous and disturbing level by the media and the paparazzi. And that is exactly what got her killed.
Top left: Dodi Al-Fayed and Princess Diana in Paris; Bottom left: the scene of Princess Diana’s car crash in Paris
And the disgusting thing–and again inhumane thing–about that is that these people, the media and the paparazzi, are protected under the guise of freedom of speech and informing the public. The ones that are harassed and exploited are not the ones protected, but the ones doing the harassing and the exploiting.
Where has our humanity gone?
No amount of fame justifies the violation of someone’s privacy or the complete disregard of their well being. And again, it’s easy to sit on the other side and question and dismiss the pain of someone who has everything–who has “made it.” It’s easy to assume that the rich and famous have no reason to struggle because money and fame fixes everything, right? It is so easy to fall into that mindset. But these kinds of situations that we’re talking about, that have brought us here today, only reveal and remind us again and again and again of the dark truth and reality.
Fame, money, they cannot buy happiness. Unfortunately, many times, they only make things worse for many people. Money and fame might simply give you even more time to sit alone with your thoughts, your loneliness, with the void you have inside. With the lies and the gossip that are spread about you that you can’t do anything about because it’s on an international level. And with the pressure from an entire world that might know your name, but will never truly know you, and might not even care to truly know you.
Unfortunately, toxic media prioritizes money over truth
In regards to Liam Payne, we might never know what truly happened in his last moments or those leading up to them. But one thing is for sure, the media does not have all the answers–no matter how persuasive they can be or the “reliable sources” that they are working with. They can speculate as they always do, but they do not know. It does not matter where or who is coming from: Fox News, CBS, TMZ (*eyeroll*). The only person who knows the true truth is the person that the media chooses to talk about. And in this case, Liam Payne. And he is not here to tell it.
And yet since his death, the media has continued to exploit his life, his death and make money off of it. They’ve leveraged his death and this situation as an opportunity to rank higher on Google and other search engines, to get more website views, to earn more in ad revenue and sponsorships. It is appalling–and, again, completely inhumane.
Cheryl Cole’s Plea on Liam Payne’s behalf
Cheryl Cole, Liam’s former girlfriend and mother to their shared son, Bear, added in her Instagram post following Liam’s death: “What is troubling my spirit the most is that one day bear will have access to the abhorrent reports and media exploitation we have seen in the past two days. It is breaking my heart further that I cannot protect him from that in his future.”
Liam Payne and ex-girlfriend, Cheryl Cole in
The Girls Aloud star and former X Factor judge continued: “I am begging you to consider what use some of these reports are serving, other than to cause further harm to everyone left behind picking up the pieces. Before you leave comments or make videos, ask yourself if you would like your own child or family to read them.”
Liam Payne holds son, Bear. @liampayne/Instagram
If you take any kind of news or media at face value, especially media of this kind of nature, you are cheating yourself, you are cheating others, and you are walking right into the traps orchestrated by these mastermind media outlets. You are willingly giving them the power to manipulate you and to cause division. Because again, all you are is a dollar sign to them. All you are is a pawn in their game. Their number one goal is to make money off of you–not just the people that they write about–you. I mean, how does that make you feel? Because that doesn’t make me feel good. You think you’re in control, yet you’re being played with as much as the victims of their narratives.
Yes–it’s that easy to deceive you. And yes, this happens everyday.
Let me pull the curtain back for you and take you behind the scenes a little. As someone who has worked in social media for years, and who has been a content creator for over six years, it is extremely, terrifyingly easy to manipulate media and to conjure a story that is completely different from reality. You can take almost anything and manipulate it to fit any kind of narrative you want.
Here’s a real life example: you can take a photo at a poor angle and sell a story that paints someone in a completely different light, often a bad one. This picture of Prince William for example. From the first angle, it does not look good for him. And you can imagine the stories that they sell with this and the money that they could make off of it. And yet, the truth, as clearly depicted on the right, is a completely different story.
This is the kind of media that people take for truth and at face value. And I can say that without a doubt, every single person has fallen victim to this trap countless times. And to be fair, when you don’t know better, you don’t know better. But at this point, we all should.
Is the blood on your hands?
As a consumer–as a reader, a viewer, a user–you have the responsibility to do your due diligence. Up until his death, social media users were casting stones, shaming and bullying Liam Payne. And let’s talk about that for a second. Social media users–”keyboard warriors”–can get away with destructive, harmful comments and the media can get away with similar content because, again, it’s protected under the guise of “freedom of speech.”
There is a significant difference between exercising your freedom of speech and flat out bullying. And if you don’t know the difference, you’re part of the problem. And whether you are the bully or you are a willing consumer of the bullying, the blood is on your hands. For Liam, his blood is on the media that exploited him. But it is also on the hands of all of those who bought into the gossip, the toxic media, the exploitation, and who allowed the media to do what it does: get in your head, divide, and profit at the expense of others. Again, all they have to do is put it out there, and you do the rest of the work for them.
Liam Payne and son, Bear. @cherylofficial/Instagram
We’re all being played by toxic media outlets
As a human being, have the respect and the courtesy to do your due diligence. And if, for some reason, you cannot find it in your heart to care about the wrongful exploitation of a public figure or a celebrity because of their status, at least have the respect to care about the exploitation of yourself. Because you are being exploited too.
These media outlets do not just prey on the people they write about, they prey on you. In fact, they depend on you. They cannot succeed without you. They feed off of your ignorance, off of your attention, your curiosity, your insecurities–treating you like nothing more than a source of profit. To them, you’re just as disposable, just another dollar in their pocket. And as long as we collectively continue to fall for the trap, toxic media will continue to exist. Because its survival depends on our indifference and our ignorance, and our toleration of it.
you know better. Stop letting them use you.
At this point, as we all are–or should be at least–aware of toxic media culture and fake news, the best thing that we can do is to question the validity of everything we see before accepting it as truth (which is something we should do regardless, especially when it involves other people). Because toxic media thrives on lies, gossip, and ignorance. These things divide people.
This entire situation with Liam Payne is so disturbing and feels so gross because just 24 hours before, the media was spreading gossip about him, users were bullying him, media was bullying him. Where was the love before the loss? Where was the justice? Where was the defense? Because now, now that something bad has happened, it’s all about love and standing up for what’s right.
The speed at which the narrative flips is a stark reminder that what we choose to believe about someone, the media that we consume and allow to shape our beliefs about someone and influence our actions, and what we choose to put out into the world holds weight and power.
toxic media is fueled by greed
Media is a powerful and incredible tool. It can unify, it can transform, but on the other side, it can divide and take advantage. And in many cases, media is incredible and positive until you start making money from it. Now that’s not the case for everyone, obviously, but unfortunately, it is for many people.
When money is involved, it is extremely difficult to know who is telling the truth and who has pure intentions and who doesn’t. We’ve all seen this, especially in recent years with the rise of influencers and TikTok, TikTok shop. We’ve seen many once trusted and reliable influencers get exposed for lying to and taking advantage of their loyal followers and fanbase in order to make money off of them–be it through partnerships, sponsorships, or promoting products. It is such an unfortunate truth, but it’s truth nonetheless. This is why it is incredibly important to question what you see.
Your vote matters: Vote against toxic media culture
Do not be so ignorant. Don’t believe everything you read. Choose to give people the benefit of the doubt, especially when they are being spoken about in their absence–when they are not present to defend themselves. We are all being cheated by toxic media–not just the individuals who are written and spoken about. All of us. And as long as we buy into it and fund it, we fuel it and keep it alive.
Every single day, you have countless opportunities to vote for a better world. You do not just vote at the election polls, you vote every day with your dollars, with your follows, with your likes, your shares, your reposts. So be a mindful consumer. Be a mindful creator. Vote wisely. Vote for better media–better media for a better world.
