Can We All Please Agree to Stop Being Assholes to Celebrities?

By Vivian Kane | Celebrity | May 1, 2016 |

By Vivian Kane | Celebrity | May 1, 2016 |

This weekend, Amy Schumer announced on her Instagram that she wouldn’t be taking pictures with fans after a guy “scared the shit out of [her],” rushing up and putting a camera in her face. According to Schumer, when she told him to stop, his response was “no it’s America and we paid for you.”

This guy in front of his family just ran up next to me scared the shit out of me. Put a camera in my face. I asked him to stop and he said " no it's America and we paid for you" this was in front of his daughter. I was saying stop and no. Great message to your kid. Yes legally you are allowed to take a picture of me. But I was asking you to stop and saying no. I will not take picture with people anymore and it's because of this dude in Greenville.

A photo posted by @amyschumer on Apr 30, 2016 at 9:23am PDT

PEOPLE. This is not acceptable human behavior. I get that there are a lot of people who really love getting autographs or pictures with celebrities. And it’s super cool when those celebrities are gracious with their time and energy and will stop what they’re doing to take a picture with one fan or with 100. That is awesome, but it is THEIR CHOICE to do so.

I have a history of getting frustrated/borderline angry at celebrities who have bad interview attitudes, who think they’re somehow above this part of their job, or don’t even see promotion as being part of their job. BUT THIS IS NOT THAT. Because promotional stuff is a part of a celebrity’s job, and because what they’re selling is often a persona as well as a product, it’s easy for us to feel like their personhood is part of their profession. IT IS NOT. If you think a celebrity owes you ANYTHING, you are— quite simply— an asshole. The type of asshole who ruins things for the rest of us. Look at all these people who have been ruined for normal fans by assholes:

Kristen Stewart

OF COURSE SHE DOESN’T SMILE ON THE RED CARPET. We are terrible, the paparazzi are terrible. Women, you know how it feels when some random dude is telling you to smile? Now imagine if a horde of photographers is screaming that at you. Yeah, I would never smile again.

Britney Spears

We are monsters.

Our chances of seeing pictures of cute celebrity babies

A photo posted by Neil Patrick Harris (@nph) on Oct 31, 2015 at 1:54pm PDT

Justin Bieber

Okay, straight-up, we didn’t ruin him. He is The Worst. But did you hear about the fans who paid thousands of dollars for a meet-and-greet, only to be met and greeted by a cardboard cut-out? I can’t help but think that that level of douchedom gets hit when the world starts to treat a celebrity like a thing we all own. Except Bieber does treat other people like owns them, and really that cut-out thing is above and beyond and you know what? Never mind, we didn’t ruin him. Strike him from this list.

By the way, Schumer has walked back those comments. Not an apology (rightfully), but a slight amendment.

Thanks for the kind words and support. I know there are bigger problems in the world. But this was not right pic.twitter.com/8fqoIm7sHC

— Amy Schumer (@amyschumer) April 30, 2016