A New Era for Celebrity Stalkers

Technology has made it much easier to be a celebrity.

Stars can attract millions of “followers” and “friends” with social media accounts that allow them to share whatever parts of their lives they are comfortable sharing. The increased attention then leads to bigger sales of movies or music — and the bigger sales lead to yet more attention.

But the constant media attention, generated by the stars themselves as well as by an increasingly aggressive social media, has made it much harder for celebrities to hold on to privacy.

Just ask Erin Andrews.

Andrews, sports reporter and “Dancing with the Stars” co-host, was unknowingly videotaped while naked in her hotel room at the Nashville Marriott. The video has been viewed 17 million times. Andrews sued the hotel for negligence, emotional distress and invasion of privacy. But the humiliation of being viewed naked by all those strangers never will go away.

Others seek this spotlight. They beat the paparazzi by posting sexy photos and videos to the web themselves. Kim Kardashian blew up social media recently with a nude photo, but she revealed it on her terms and took on the criticism straightforwardly.

This was not the case with Andrews.

A lot of work goes into the art of being a celebrity and one of the important elements is building a brand. Andrews, a woman operating in a man’s world, had worked hard to build a brand of credibility. To her, that one video wiped out years of work toward that goal.

“I felt like when I walked into a room like everybody was watching me, like they’d seen the video,” she said in court.

[lz_related_box id=”89739″]

And she does not figure to be the final victim.

Celebrity stalking increasingly has become a troubling downside of fame, and technology means it’s not just by the mentally unstable anymore; it’s become mainstream.

Social media has changed the speed of privacy and reporting. Members of the public now function as citizen journalists, feeding photos and videos of celebrities to news operations like never before. Stars playing with their kids, shopping at the grocery store without makeup on, buying coffee — all these are fair game for anyone with a phone.

It has changed the way things unfold when stars go out to eat or shop.

In the old days — five years ago — it was like that scene in the movie “Selena” where the singer is helping her sister try on a dress in the dressing room, and a fan spots her and quickly spreads the word that she is there at the store. The shoppers of the mall surround the store where Selena is shopping within minutes.

[lz_third_party includes=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9qu6rqjuC8&feature=youtu.be”]

In February, when the new breed of social media citizen paparazzi spotted Leonardo DiCaprio at a restaurant in the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C., word spread through social media within minutes, and a swarm of students from Georgetown University crowded around the restaurant for a peek.

So many came that DiCaprio had to duck out a side door. He was spotted at Café Milano, the current restaurant to the stars in Georgetown, a little while later.

[lz_third_party includes=”https://twitter.com/brittmansouri/status/701884422006640641?ref_src=twsrc” width=”630px”]

Superman actor Henry Cavill recently warned fans on what expect when they want to snap his photo while he’s hanging with friends during his downtime.

“If people want to take a photo, that’s fine,” Cavill told DuJour magazine. “But they’re going to get a photo of me drunk.”

Photos from the celeb media can range from the merely unflattering – DiCaprio or Adam Sandler flashing their dad bods on some secluded beach – to the downright dangerous.

Actresses Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Lopez have had to place numerous restraining orders on stalkers at their homes.

In 2013, Illinois indicted a man for stalking and harassing the R&B singer Ashanti after he sent more than 100 tweets to her account.

Singer Taylor Swift received 735 disturbing tweets from one man who openly admitted he was stalking her. She finally had a restraining order put on him.

“@taylorswift13 Ring, hello. Hi, Taylor, it’s Tim. Oh, Tim. My stalker. No, just a fella trying to date a girl. One who I’ll be marrying 1 day. ;-)” he wrote on March 4, 2012.

Actress Jennifer Garner has talked openly about the crazed stalker who followed her family. When she and Ben Affleck were married, they revealed to the media how they added guns to their home for protection.

We often feel a pseudo-intimacy with celebrities because we follow their career and personal details via the entertainment media. Celebrities can feel like family. We mourn their passing and celebrate their happiness in marriage and in childbirth.

We must remember they are people, and the relationship is a one-way affection. They live an on-screen life and an off-screen life. They may enjoy the financial benefit of our fandom, but they deserve their private space as much as we do. The jury in the Erin Andrews case realized that.