Bill Cosby is perhaps the latest but certainly not the first celebrity whom the public has fallen out of love with over something terrible they did that went public. Is there a term for this kind of mass disenchantment with a celebrity? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Celebrities Falling Out of Favor”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Colin Peacock from London, Ontario.
Welcome to the show. What’s up?
Hi. Well, I was at a pub a couple weeks ago, and we were talking about celebrities that we’ve, you know, liked, and the conversation had sort of turned to people we’d started to dislike over the past couple years because of stuff they’d said on Twitter or social media or projects they’d been funding, stuff like that.
And, you know, with people like Bill Cosby and people like that in media right now, it’s, you know, there’s this sensation sometimes of, you know, you have somebody that you like and respect and you have this feeling of falling out of love with these celebrities.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You sort of feel like it’s a matter of time almost.
So every single person will let you down.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, I really like Chris Pratt right now, but I have this anxiety around like, you know, at some point I think he’s going to say something.
Yeah.
He’s going to be emboldened by his celebrity and play the dark, deep thoughts.
Yeah, exactly.
So what I was kind of wondering, and what the table had been wondering at the time, was like, is there a term for this? The way we, you know, like celebrities and then fall out of love with them.
Isn’t it very much the way that you feel eventually that your parents aren’t the great gods that you first thought them to be?
That’s a really good comparison.
Yeah.
I mean, sometimes you go back into falling back into respect. I won’t say love is not quite the word, but you go back into respecting them when you’re older and you start to understand the difficulties they were in when having kids, careers, bills, that stuff.
But Bill Cosby is a big one for me. I loved his stuff as a kid. And now I’m horrified by what I’m reading and hearing.
I know.
I’m like, wait a second. I thought he was the funny, grandfatherly, fatherly type.
Well, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, so if we were going to coin a term, I think Cusbeed is just, it’s too easy.
Yeah.
Geloid, I don’t think so.
But he wasn’t the first, though.
No, well, no.
I mean, let’s go back to King David. Hey, let’s talk about Clayfeet, you know?
There’s a notion of betrayal here, but it’s not that you have a personal relationship with these celebrities, right, Colin?
Yeah, there’s that.
I mean, it’s different if it’s a mentor, say, a college professor that you looked up to, and they later don’t approve the grant application that you wanted or don’t pick you for the special position or that sort of thing.
That’s a different kind of feeling betrayed than a celebrity who’d never heard of you that hasn’t held up to their public image.
Sports figures do this all the time, don’t they?
Yeah, I think so.
Well, yeah, sports figures, that’s another one.
So a term for that disillusionment is what you’re talking about.
Yeah, exactly.
So disillusionment plus disappointment. You’re being let down.
It’s quite a come down.
Did your fellow drinkers in the pub come up with anything?
We weren’t able to come up with anything at the time. Nothing clever anyway.
We do have a lot of clever listeners, I bet, who would like to weigh in on this, with no shortage of opinions and access to email.
What’s the one word, verb, noun, adjective, something that you could use for a situation where a celebrity has not lived up to their perfect public image, where they’ve done something so horrific that you have to stop respecting them, consuming their works, or even thinking about them?
Yeah.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
Colin, we’ll see what we get, all right?
Great. Thank you.
Yeah, sure. Thanks for calling. Really appreciate it.
Thanks a lot, Colin.
