On Reports of the Celebrity Profile’s Death
Last Saturday, perhaps one of the most hotly anticipated pieces of journalism in recent years was published. It was so anticipated not because the reporter or the publication had done anything to hype it up, but rather because its subject—LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey—two weeks before had threatened to sue the Washington Post if it published what she described as a “hit piece.”
Much to the chagrin of Mulkey’s haters—of which there are, I think it’s fair to say, many—the “hit piece” was actually just a profile. It gives an effective overview of her life, her career and her controversies, but doesn’t include anything new or revelatory.
That Mulkey didn’t cooperate in the creation of the profile, which was reportedly in the works for two years, does hold it back to some extent. Rather than hearing her respond to criticisms head on, we read her response through her lawyers, who speak in drab language (as lawyers do).
Mulkey’s lack of participation in a profile about her could be seen as further evidence of a trend perceived in recent years by many observers of the media: the death of the celebrity profile.
The issue, many argue, is that cooperating with a publication for a profile simply isn’t worth it for most celebrities anymore. In the past, profiles were an effective way for celebrities to widen their reach, maintain relevance and, if necessary, respond to any potential criticisms personally.
Now, it seems like celebrities don’t need to work with publications to accomplish those things. There have never been more avenues—namely, social media—for celebrities to reach their fans and the wider public directly. More importantly, these avenues give the celebrities, not publications, narrative control over their own public persona.
As a result, celebrities now seemingly either don’t sit for interviews at all or they only do so with writers that they believe will not give them pushback. In December, TIME published a profile of Taylor Swift—the first she had done in years—in which the writer literally says in the piece that he wanted to pushback on something Swift had said but decided not to.
That profile, along with a slew of recent celebrity profiles that seem perhaps a tad too reverent of their subject, prompted the New Statesman to declare the celebrity profile dead, calling the Swift profile “the inevitable result of a media culture in which the most powerful people in the world now set the terms of engagement and are never forced to contend with any real criticism.”
This was, however, not the first time the celebrity profile was declared dead. The New York Times declared it dead in 2018. Reason did so in 2005. Spin, famously, in 1998.
The latter essay, written well before the age of social media, laments the exact same issues that many are lamenting now and have been for the past quarter century. The balance of power, it says, in celebrity profiles is weighted toward the celebrity.
I think what’s happening here is a classic case of rose-colored retrospect. They just don’t write profiles the way they used to, observers say. Remember when every celebrity profile was perfect?
In reality, the ideal celebrity profile—in which the writer not only successfully humanizes a celebrity, but also gives them a hefty punch of pushback, and also reveals juicy new information, and also has full cooperation of the subject—was always pretty rare. Even the most famous celebrity profile of all time—Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” published in Esquire in 1965—was not reported or written with Sinatra’s participation.
To be sure, I have no doubt that the age of social media and the changing nature of celebrity itself has altered the celebrity profile as an art form. In particular, it is more difficult than ever for reporters to find new information for their profile, since anything a celebrity wants to reveal is probably already public. And it probably is true that celebrities have fewer incentives to cooperate with publications for profiles now.
But even if it has gotten harder to write a great celebrity profile—and, to be clear, it was already pretty hard—it is not impossible. I would suspect that going forward, more and more celebrity profiles look like the one by Talese that so many journalists admire. In fact, just two months ago, the New Yorker published a profile of star basketball player Nikola Jokić, without his cooperation, that was widely praised.
To put it simply (and cliche-dly), reports of the celebrity profile’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
A (Premature) Eulogy for Online April Fool’s Day
You may have noticed that not a lot happened on the internet a week ago.
Strike that. You probably did not notice that not a lot happened on the internet a week ago. But it is interesting that not a lot happened. It was April Fool’s Day, and not so long ago, April Fool’s Day was the internet’s favorite holiday.
As recently as less than a decade ago, big tech companies—most famously Google—and other corporations made it an annual tradition to launch massive prank announcements every April the 1st. (I still remember “signing up” to have every video on YouTube delivered to my home as a physical DVD in 2012.)
It was genius marketing, playing into the widespread optimism at the time that the internet could theoretically do anything, while also giving those big faceless corporations fun, quirky personalities.
Technically, it was the COVID-19 pandemic that ended Silicon Valley’s practice of celebrating April Fool’s Day, but in all likelihood, the pandemic simply accelerated its demise. By 2020, the optimism that fueled these pranks was vanishing, and consumers were already starting to push back on corporations’ online cheekiness, a trend that has only grown in recent years. Plus, with misinformation rife, pranks that essentially amount to lying don’t go over as well as they once did.
To be clear, I’m not here to declare Online April Fool’s Day dead. Plenty of companies big and small did “pranks” this year, although most were relatively low-key. Rather, the relatively quiet April 1, 2024 was a clear sign that the internet’s favorite holiday has long jumped the shark.
What Else I’m Following
This article on how sports betting can even affect bench players.
The White House telling NASA to make a time zone for the moon.
The Walt Disney Company shareholder drama. (Wish I could get a Succession reboot but about Bob Iger.)
Andrew Scott in the new Talented Mr. Ripley adaptation for Netflix.
This article about the soundtrack to the African Cup of Nations.
The eclipse:
That’s all for this edition of Cansler Culture. If you liked what you read, be sure to send it pass it along.