What Ever Happened to Red Carpet Decorum?
In the words of Shereé Whitfield: “What happened to ‘Hello. How are you? My name is…’”
"There's some like… TikTokers here," Billie Eilish told Kylie Minogue, covering her mouth before pointing their way, at the People’s Choice Awards.
Present at the show were a litany of names and faces made famous by the Internet: James Charles, Tana Mongeau, Harry Daniels and more. Some were attending the event as guests, others were working it.
One of the TikTokers, Bryce Hall, took to (you guessed it) TikTok, to address what he saw as a controversy. He facetiously apologized for not “acknowledging her greatness and bowing down.” The most sad thing, according to Hall’s video? “I was a Billie Eilish stan," Hall explained. "I stanned you, Billie Eilish. And now I don't think I can renegade to any of your songs any more, so thanks for taking out all my content." (This might be a deep cut reference, but when Cecile first meets Kathryn in Cruel Intentions, she says goodbye by pounding her chest and then making a peace sign and saying “Peace out!” After she leaves, Kathryn, looking absolutely disgusted, says, “Peace out?” That’s me hearing the term “renegade to any of your songs any more.”)
The controversy over Internet-famous folks crossing over into spaces formerly occupied by IRL famous folks is nothing new. There were similar brouhahas when Kim Kardashian was given her first Vogue cover in 2014 and when James Charles scored an invite to the Met Gala in 2019. But lately, there have been instances that call into question the use of Internet-famous folks in lieu of journalists. It makes sense on the surface: Journalists ask questions that rely on the answers given by the talent, whereas content creators are more focused on creating virality (their bread and butter) and therefore the energy is a bit more “shoot your shot” than a journalist’s red carpet soft balls. It makes sense on the surface why award shows are courting this type of correspondent. But dig a little deeper and you start to see the impact this has on knowing celebrities and publicists who are beginning to clam up or all out evade talking to press.
But it’s not just the influencers! There have been quite a few instances of late in which red carpet correspondents from prestige outlets have asked questions that have left both the interviewees and us at home puzzled as to what we’re really doing here. As I wrote back in January, “It seems, in a sense, that we’ve transitioned from red carpet interviews to what often seems like trolling celebrities in an effort to get something meme-able. It’s funny having me of all people comment on this in the negative, but I really do feel like the best red carpet moments (like Glenn Close reacting to Billy Porter’s tuxedo in 2019) simply can’t be orchestrated. They just happen. The magic is that a camera was there to catch it.” So what precipitated this change? Let’s unpack.