The 54th annual Grammy Awards honored Adele with six awards. The female pop sensation came out with wins in three categories: Album, Record and Song of the Year. Her bestselling album “21” was the fastest-selling album of the past eight years, according to NPR.
However, despite Adele’s continued success, comedians eager for a quick, cheap joke have already jumped at the opportunity to make fun of the British singer. The phantom Twitter account @AdelesExBF popped up on Monday night and gained over 2,900 followers by Tuesday evening.
The anonymous “ex-boyfriend” tweets embarrassing, though fictitious, stories about the singer and their alleged relationship. “You’ve heard her side, now hear mine,” the account’s bio reads. “I’m not a bad guy. I did what I had to do. TRUST ME.” There’s a fire starting on Twitter.
“Adele gave me a Ham Lunchables for our third anniversary, but had already eaten all the ham,” the account tweeted.
It seems more and more that modern humor is defined by bringing unknowns to fame, only to undermine them with insults or by placing them on the receiving end of ridicule. The initial praising and obsessing of a rising star only to then tear down the person’s public image when he or she has achieved success has become common practice among many. But it doesn’t stop with incriminating tweets. The comedic characters of Joel McHale, Perez Hilton and Daniel Tosh feed on this type of thing. Without anyone to make fun of, their jokes would never reach the punch line.
America’s taste for comedy calls for turning once-praised popular figures into targets of our jokes. (Editor’s note: Nicholas Cage is the exception.)
The weight of this argument takes root in the music industry. There is a laundry list of artists that have become “uncool” after gaining national recognition.
The same fans who would support their favorite indie bands or musicians before they break into the mainstream are the first to call “sellout” as soon as said artists depart from the underground. The venues of Akron, Ohio, ring with the cries of bemoaned fans of The Black Keys now that the band’s music has been featured in movie soundtracks, car commercials and seemingly exploded into the mainstream. How many times have you heard someone say, “I liked Sonny Moore so much more before he was Skrillex”?
By the same logic, dear anonymous hypocritical hipster, would you then become a sellout after getting a job in your field of study after graduating college? At what point does making a living from your craft, art or passion — getting paid to do what you love — become uncool?
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