@deuxmoi's gossip problem: Celebrities deserve privacy, dignity

Magazine headlines, TV specials and now social media posts: Celebrity gossip has been popular in many forms for decades. But the rise of Instagram accounts such as the infamous @deuxmoi, and the rapid spread of information that these accounts allow for has raised some serious questions about the morality of celebrity gossip.

Where is the line drawn between harmless talk and invasiveness? Do celebrities owe insight into their personal lives due to their public personas, and how much privacy are they entitled to?

The main thing worth remembering is that celebrities are people, too, despite being so well-known and in the public eye. They have lives outside of their jobs in the media, which are increasingly being watched and commented on. This was the case for actor Nicholas Braun, whose mundane, normal daily routine was being sent into @deuxmoi in various repetitive, invasive messages that resulted in people stalking him.

People aren’t just gossiping about celebrity relationships anymore (though that type of gossip can be harmful, too), but instead any last piece of information they can get. It would be incredibly creepy if someone made a public Instagram account to document the day-to-day activities of a random stranger in their city, so why does it seem more acceptable to do this to celebrities?

One idea that accounts for the enduring popularity of celebrity gossip is that of parasocial relationships, essentially defined as consumers of media feeling like they have some level of personal closeness to the celebrities they observe.

The rise of social media has helped foster these relationships as people can interact with celebrities more easily and directly. Research isn’t fully conclusive on whether parasocial relationships are healthy.

Some researchers say that feeling this closeness can help alleviate feelings of loneliness and isolation — something we’ve all been familiar with over these past two years — but others have found that these relationships can go as far as to impact people’s personal decisions and become obsessive.

Regardless of whether these relationships are healthy for consumers of media, if they become too obsessive, this can lead people to hyperfocus on celebrities’ actions, which in turn can encourage them to gossip. And even if observers are finding entertainment and camaraderie among each other by gossiping together, rumors and constant speculation can be harmful to celebrities.

Many celebrities report struggling with mental health, and having to hear constant gossip can make that worse. They lack privacy when dealing with pre-existing mental health issues, and facing constant comments on their appearance, personalities and relationships can lead to new struggles with mental health.

@deuxmoi in particular can be extra problematic due to the speed at which claims, typically anonymous, are sent to the account and then shared with the public. Most gossip is, of course, based on rumors and speculation that may end up being false. Even if the rumor itself is true, people may guess wrongly about who the claim is for.

Accounts like @deuxmoi can get gossipy or false information out to people quickly, way before the celebrities or their teams can make any sort of opposing claim. People also put a lot of trust into @deuxmoi — even though, ironically, the administrator of the account is anonymous — leading them to eventually share gossip as fact across the internet.

Celebrity gossip has become extremely normalized by society, despite all of its negative impacts. It's hard to avoid speculating on the activities of such public figures, but at the end of the day, it really is better for celebrities and their observers to do so.

Relationships, births, big projects — celebrities will share these things themselves if and when they want to. As for the other nitty-gritty details of their personal lives, celebrities really should be entitled to some privacy on certain things.

The general public doesn’t need to know where their favorite actor buys groceries or goes to dinner, and sharing this information on social media is invasive, even if it distracts obsessive gossipers from the slog of their daily lives.