How The Court Of Public Opinion Determines Celebrities’ Careers

Social media shapes our world today. It’s impacted how we communicate with one another, how companies do business, and especially how we perceive current events. While social media has the power to inspire and transform, it also has the potential to destroy.

PR specialist George Nellist pointed out that “celebrities are both created and canceled at the click of a button.” How the public views celebrities can make or break their entire career, regardless of the talent and hard work that helped them reach celebrity status. The main way the court of opinion rules is through the power of social media.

One of the most recent examples is that of Zoë Kravitz, actress and daughter of Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz. After the incident at the 2022 Oscars in which Will Smith hit Chris Rock onstage, Kravitz described the event as “the award show where we are apparently assaulting people on stage now” on Instagram.

Social media users who disagreed with her perspective came out in droves, digging into her past and bringing up inappropriate comments she’d made about then-14-year-old Jaden Smith. Hundreds of Twitter users dug up examples of Kravitz’s missteps throughout her career, even though she was enjoying fame and positive feedback from her recent starring role in The Batman.

Social media played the main role in this story: the place where Kravitz made the statement in the first place, and where the backlash started. The fact that celebrities have immediate access to reach millions of people at the click of a button is a power that comes with great responsibility, as Uncle Ben has told us for generations. In some cases, the platforms that keep their fans engaged are also what knocks them off the pedestal.

Celebrities Misusing Social Media

“There’s no shortage of examples of celebrities posting something that leads to a public onslaught,” says Nellist, uniquely placed as an individual who grew his agency into an 8-figure company within two years.

In 2020, Vanessa Hudgens of High School Musical fame received massive backlash regarding a comment she made about the cancellation of Coachella and the death rate of COVID.

In an Instagram story, the actress lamented about the cancellation of her favorite festival and how COVID should not deter people. “Even if everybody gets it, like yeah, people are going to die, which is terrible…but inevitable?”

This comment, which the vast majority of viewers saw as insensitive, came right amidst the pandemic. This was posted on her own Instagram story, and hurt years of positive public perception of Hudgens, who was previously scandal-free.

Others who used social media to negatively impact the public’s view of them are Roseanne Barr, actress and comedian known for her role on Roseanne, and comedian Kathy Griffin. Barr made a thinly-veiled racist comment about Barack Obama’s senior advisor Valerie Jarret on Twitter, while Griffin posted a photo of her holding the fake decapitated head of Donald Trump.

Both women eventually released apologies, but the court of public opinion is not quick to forgive. One misstep on social media can cost you major points in terms of your reputation. Once something’s on the internet, it’s there forever. This is certainly the case with screenshots of Barr’s tweet and Griffin’s explicit photo. These mistakes will follow celebrities for years, some even losing fans and supporters along the way. All because of one single social media post.

Preventing Backlash

How can notable names prevent this from happening? According to Nellist “it’s virtually impossible for anyone who has made a regretful mistake in the past.” But if a celebrity hasn’t done anything that the public considers worth canceling them over, what they truly need to do is be incredibly careful about what they say in public, post on social media, and who they associate with.

Walking this thin line between celebration and cancellation can make anyone weary, but that’s the cost of being a celebrity. Nellist further iterated that, “using proper judgment”, waiting before posting on a whim, and even hiring a trustworthy team of professional communicators can be some of the top ways to prevent “cancel culture” from coming after them for potentially unintentional missteps.

With that said, mistakes are inevitable. As Elbert Hubbard said, “To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.” That’s not possible as a public figure, so the best they can do is mitigate the risk of being tried in the court of public opinion.