There’s a phrase that kept coming up in the comment sections of Hudson Williams videos, after he exploded onto the scene with the unexpected success of Heated Rivalry. It goes like this (although there are many iterations): “Please never get media training, don’t let anyone take your sparkle away”. Clearly, the rising actor had charmed fans by being his most authentic self – there are even edit videos dedicated to him making sexual jokes and saying he doesn’t “give a fuck” about reclining his seat on the plane. So, is being unfiltered becoming the new standard for what we expect from celebrities? 

I don’t make a habit of feeling bad for famous people (there are plenty of other things to worry about), but when looking at what makes a celebrity ‘likeable’, it can be hard to keep up. It’s why even the beloved Zendaya has expressed concern that people will get sick of her after watching her in four movies this year. While some people praise the star for keeping to her movie notes, not getting personal and being “PR trained to the heavens”, she’s also already received some heat online for her milquetoast answers on her latest press tour for The Drama. Still, people want and expect famous people to give “real” answers, but when someone like Timothée Chalamet speaks his truth about ballet, it’s deemed as going “too far”, and everyone turns on them.

A number of people have suggested that Williams is able to say off-the-cuff things, while still coming off charming, due to a combination of natural charisma and media training. Publicist Waylon Tate is one of those people. “Gen Z aren’t playing around with people anymore and can spot when something feels scripted almost instantaneously because they have grown up in an era of lies, hypocrisy and PR cleanup over and over and over,” he says. “Once they start to feel that something is manufactured, they are going to completely disengage.” Part of this, at least, is because of the interconnected relation between politics and entertainment. 

In 2020, during pandemic lockdowns, there was a moment when people swore that celebrity and influencer culture would die. How could we continue to care about out-of-touch people singing “Imagine” from their mansions in the face of a global crisis this severe? But it turned out people did (and do) continue to care about what celebrities are up to – we just want their opinions to be politically aligned with our own. “Everybody has to have a point of view, especially in a time that's so tumultuous,” says Jenelle Hamilton, founder of Jenelle Hamilton PR. “People don’t just want to hear about your movie, or tethering, in-between answers about the world, like ‘Oh, that’s not something I want to discuss’.” 

Naturally, publicists have caught onto this desire for authenticity, ushering a new era of “media training”, moving from strict control and perfect soundbites to one that cultivates what Tate calls “coached authenticity”. The popularity of long-form media, like podcasts, also reflects this craving for deeper, less pre-packaged conversations. This is all factored into the overall strategy. “You’ve got to keep the public thirsty, so how are we doing that? By knowing when too much is too much,” says Tate. Once the public decides you are bratty, like what’s happening with Chappell Roan, or even just annoying, like what happened to Jennifer Lawrence, it can take years to change their mind. 

“Everybody has to have a point of view, especially in a time when it’s so tumultuous. People don’t just want to hear about your movie, or tethering, in-between answers about the world, like ‘Oh, that’s not something I want to discuss’”

What’s funny, though, is that people once loved Jennifer Lawrence’s quirky interview style – until they didn’t. It’s a phenomenon commonly referred to as being “woman’d” online (because it most often happens to women). Even if someone is beloved, if they become overexposed, appear to forget their non-celebrity roots or are deemed cringe, the tides will turn. Perhaps this tendency towards backlash is because people believe they could do a better job of being in the spotlight themselves. Hamilton, for example, shares media training advice online, which thousands of people are interested in. “Some people are like, ‘I don’t have a personal brand’, but we all do,” she says. “The pressure that is [placed] even more so on celebrities is also on regular people to maintain a certain image for ourselves.” 

Prominent film critic Richard Schickel described our relationship with celebrities as one with “intimate strangers”. Leo Braudy, author of The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History, says that social media has made the bond tighter, but also placed it under the lens of a more questioning audience. “I think we’ve always had the relationship where we worship the person, and then find the feet of clay,” he says. “It’s all just sped up because we’re getting so much more information constantly about these people.” This isn’t exactly new: each technological development (from films to fan magazines) has fundamentally altered the way celebrities have connected with their audiences, according to Brady. It’s only natural that on the very social platforms where unfiltered creators, like Emma Chamberlain, have risen to fame and hot takes are rewarded by the algorithm, we’re beginning to expect celebrities, too, to be more candid.

Of course, during peak cancel culture, there was a time when celebrities were more afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing. To some extent, that’s still there (although there are plenty of men with sexual assault allegations who have since returned to the spotlight). At the same time, there is an ongoing backlash emphasising “free speech” and the right to offend, which has bled into what we expect on the red carpet. When a video interview can go up in minutes, Hamilton says celebrities have to play a fine balance between being professional and going viral. “Where old school celebrities are still traditionally media trained, others are asking, how can I be me but not get in trouble? How can I not be stuffy or aloof?” she says. “Also, how can it feel almost like I’m FaceTiming a friend?” That parasocial energy seems to be exactly what we’re craving now, especially in the face of the current loneliness epidemic, when people are often looking to celebrities to fill a void.

As influencer culture continues to water down the idea of celebrity, we know more than we ever have about many intimate strangers. We’re also increasingly craving that unfiltered form of intimacy, where a celebrity says a bold (but not too bold) thing or treats an interview like a first date. Speaking off the cuff has also become something we expect from politicians, which is why many Americans can still see President Donald Trump – a billionaire – as relatable. Many of these same politicians are encouraging the public to be wary of traditional media. In many ways, how we think about media training now reflects a broader scepticism which the public has towards “the media”.

There’s an argument to be made (or re-made) for taking celebrities off their pedestals altogether – yes, even the ones we really like and want to “protect” from the big, bad wolf of media training. Over a year ago, Kristi Seymour, a YouTuber and pop culture video essayist, posted a video on why “media training won’t save celebrities”. When I ask her if she still believes this, in light of a new era of “coached authenticity”, she says yes. “I do think people only like authenticity in a form that’s digestible; one that’s not abrasive, doesn’t challenge their worldview or any of their morals,” she says. “Once people say something that means you wouldn’t be friends with them, all of a sudden it’s ‘I don’t like this person’.” And, at the end of the day, celebrities are not our friends, no matter how much we wish them to be. Once the mask slips, sometimes people will even comment, “They need media training”.