There was a time when Rebecca Black and her song, ‘Friday’ was a meme. It was popular for millions of people to tease, torment, stalk and threaten the life of a thirteen year old girl because of a music video, the digital mob was hungry for another child effigy to burn. The vitriolic obsession over Black was especially concentrated among, the screen names of 4chan who thought it would be funny to share online the school, house and class schedule of the teenage girl. Due to events out of her control she had become internet famous which meant she now belonged to the world.
Many people love to hate and love to love famous children, there is a morbid obsession with stars whose childhood is for public consumption. The child watches especially love it when the child star spirals and declines into public misery. It’s not a modern fascination, it is as ancient as Hollywood itself and such child sacrifices are perhaps found in many great civilisations. The modern celebrity child ensures what wealth can be made is bled from the youth, while others molest and abuse. The pedlars of vice profit by ensuring the young stars measure their success with escapist drugs, getting them drunk or stoned or until they, ‘are on the drug that killed River Phoenix,’ a child abused into fame himself. It’s easier to control the recklessly inebriated, they become even more dependent and when it’s time to set them free it appears as though it’s their own fault for their failings. Let’s not forget that Hollywood still gives Roman Polanski a standing ovation.
Generations of children were marched through the controlling Disney fame factory, to be underpaid and paired with abusive adults who would ensure that celebrity finds them but with a big leash attached. To some it’s comical to see Britney Spears dance into the camera on her Instagram, like a broken music box, she still performs as she was trained to do from a young age. She only knows how to entertain, for a time the mob and her handlers loved her for it, and once she became of age they sexualised her until as a woman she, often stumbled in public without the foundation of a healthy childhood.
While E.T. may have gone home, his co-star Drew Barrymore became an alcoholic and junkie as she crawled into puberty, dragged or invited to adult parties throughout the 1980s, she was a regular tabloid fixture and the fodder of muck chuckers who could shame her addictions one minute, then find themselves horny for her antics the next. She seemingly matured and transcended, despite the adults around her tugging at her to remain inside the pit of abuse that only such a culture craves.
From her era was the two Corey’s, both once considered heartthrobs for many girls and women, and it turns out men as well. The two child actors became superstars as they reached their teenage years, often starring together or at least becoming associated with one another. Corey Haim, would struggle with his addictions and the abuse he suffered due while a celebrity, the darkness would swallow him up though as a perverse punctuation we could see the unusually reality of his peril in the slop reality television featuring him and the other Corey, Feldman. There they discuss abuse and the sinister truth of their shared path.
Corey Feldman lives on but also is stuck in a purgatory of shadow fame. He sings and dances in a manner that has not found a serious audience, only those who ironically like him or like to tease him. He is doing what he had done since he was a little boy, face the camera and performed. Now a piece of him wants to keep, perhaps one of the few people from his childhood that did not abuse him alive, Michael Jackson.
The abuse suffered by the Jackson Five is notoriously tragic. It led to super talented children who would perform for millions on stage through the television screen. Enslaved to perform, it was Michael Jackson who broke free of the 1970s only to own the 1980s as one of it’s icons. Despite many claims against him, the child stars who went to his mansion retreat talk about their experiences with him fondly. As though Jackson understood the importance of children having a sanctuary and a place to be a child. A childhood that he never experienced.
One child who speaks fondly of Jackson is Macaulay Culkin, the super star of the 1990s was pushed to be an entertainer by his father. All of this siblings were also groomed to be stars, though it was Mack who became the mega star thanks to his performances in Uncle Buck and the Home Alone films. Once he matured, he became less appealing to the mob that craved the veneer of innocence, cuteness. Mack managed to survive the fate that was expected of him to suffer, and steered a mature path despite the predators and public that eat children. He has gone on to star along side mega star Rich Evans.
Lindsay Lohan, thrived as a child actor with a promising career but the tabloids loved her too, making sure to report on any teenage indiscretions. It was the era of junk magazines, professional paparazzi would lay in the gutter to get an up skirt photo and sell it to such magazines so that their readership could flick through the pages with a self righteous hubris, feeling superior to the person who had a camera pointed at their groin. The teenage star was called, ‘fire crotch’ due to the colour of her hair, in all areas. It was all rather normal and accepted for a youth to be treated this way, the price one must pay for entertaining millions. No privacy or dignity allowed.
Justin Bieber was one child star who was especially loved by girls and women, though his hit, ‘Baby,’ was one of the most disliked videos on YouTube. He became a despised star, and when he ‘matured,’ with generic tattoos and the fashion that is apparently hip, he became another lost icon. He was discovered by lurking adults, such as Ludacris, who scowled the internet for children to sign and make famous.
Music producer, Patrice Wilson adopted this method when he took advantage of the thirteen year old Rebecca Black and her family. Originally her parents wanted to make her a music video, like one of her school friends had done. It was meant to be harmless fun. Patrice produced and edited the video, uploading it before the family even got to see the final product. It was only when it was posted online that the Black’s saw the video for the first time. Millions more would as well. Especially after the heroic screen names of 4Chan zoned in on her and made her infamous to the point of repeated death threats. That’s just what such people like to do to children.
When Miley Cyrus breaks free of her Disney image with a ‘slutty’ image, it’s not widely understood that she did this to be dropped by the corporate masters who wanted her to remain child friendly. In becoming toxic, she could take ownership of her self and talents. Though the outsiders who love to ‘own’ celebrities did not care and when Jo Jo Siwa changed her look, to the point that she now looks like Golddust’s daughter, it’s assumed that she has become, another broken child star. It’s not uncommon to hear Elizabeth Olsen to be described as the ‘normal Olsen’, as though her two twin sisters are condemned for the life that they led from babies until the countdown clock to their, ‘legal status,’ was a choice that they had made together. From adorable babies to fuckable, in a generation of television viewing.
There are many in the industry who love children, and they are loved for loving the children, it took government, royalty and media to conceal the crimes of Jimmy Saville, despite his many victims and so long as Nickelodeon’s Dan Schneider kept producing award winning shows, slime and feet included, his conduct and abuse was ignored. The same can be said of Bryan Singer and other talented directors and producers. Or how a child star agent like Martin Weis could coerce into sex one of his client victims by saying, “this is how you become a star.” The relationship between the LAPD and Hollywood, is a old and close relationship that has ensured children become famous and their terrible moments behind closed doors remain hidden, that’s off course if the public ever cared.
A dude who said, Logan Paul 100,000 times is likely your child’s hero and has surrounded himself with people that love children as well. Celebrity is that funny thing, it’s where someone suddenly loses their rights and dignity simply because they entertained a lot of people, if they happen to be a child the mob seems to love seeing them suffer all the more.
Alana, ‘Honey Boo Boo Child’ did grow up into a woman, the mob that made her famous, moved on, seeking out other ‘freaks’ or children to gorge on. I suppose there are those who will shrug and say, it’s the child’s fault for wanting to be famous. I can’t explain why parents throw their children into the arms of predators, perhaps wealth and fame is enough and why the mob love-hates them so much. Jealousy maybe? The unhealth is in the audience, the mob at home, hungry for more children to live and die before their eyes. Dance little Shirley Temple, dance! Take those drugs to stay skinny Dorothy! The good witch is just an apparition! How dare you play a child Anakin Skywalker! John Connor never did get to grow up in the end…after all it’s just show business.
