The “Reality Check” in Hunter Schafer Viral Passvideo

Do you remember Gal Gadots “Imagine” video? Sorry for dredging this piece of unfortunate pop culture, but in March 2020 Wonder Woman Star recruited a group of her famous friends to sing himself – no, slaughtering -, John Lennon's “Imagine” to increase morality when people in the middle of Covid's rise began to quarantine. The resulting clip, as my colleague Spencer Kornhaber expressed it at the time, “a global pandemic has felt even more hopeless than it already does.”

Pressures often try to move their fan base just to inspire a collective horror instead. In 2022, actor Annalynne McCord, who was known for the leading role in a restart of Beverly Hills, 90210Performed a poem that she wrote to Vladimir Putin after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It starts with the line “I'm so sorry that I wasn't your mother.” After posting it on social media, she was completely mocked by online commentators. In January, Selena Gomez cried in an Instagram video when she discussed the mass arrest of migrants within the first week of President Donald Trump's new term. The problem is personally for Gomez-Die Multihyphenate famousness is the granddaughter of undocumented immigrants and Netflix documentaries produced by executives on this topic-but also her plea pulled the internet IRE. Conservative experts, perhaps not surprising, criticized their message (and their emotional delivery); Other commentators blame them for the apparent theatrics to film their need.

However, the actor Hunter Schafer seems to have avoided a similar fate. In an almost nine -minute Tikok, which she published at the end of the last month euphoria Star, who is trans, tells of her new passport and sees that it is called “male”. The change corresponded to the recent executive regulation of the Trump government, in which the federal government only recognizes biological gender and not gender identity. (Schafer, who is 26 years old and used the sex markers since her teenagers, explained that she had stolen her passport last year; she then had to replace the temporary emergency document after her return to the USA in February.)

Read: For celebrities, apathy can be a form of political credibility

Schafer described her shock; Although the switching sex markers do not affect their self-awareness, it is dismayed by “the difficulty that brings this into shit in real life”, including the broom bags and the “Make themselves to Border-patrol agents”. In contrast to Gomez, McCord and the “Imagine” crew, Schafer Online has not received much ridicule. Instead, her video on social media was divided in detail as an open example of how the new guideline began to influence the Americans.

This relative lack of flashbacks is meaningful. Celebrities appear more accessible on the Internet than ever, making several platforms available to communicate closely and directly with the public. But the motifs behind their words are also exposed to a larger public examination. If prominent social media can use to show parts of their personal life – the average person can see in their home or monitor their romantic relationships – to prove themselves for the public, their activism can be more calculated than authentic.

This changing relationship explains why the efforts of Gadot and McCord were considered toned and staged in order to be taken seriously. In the meantime, Gomez was clearly sincerely and admitted when she sobbed that she did not know how to help them be detained and deported, but her demonstrative message prompted the audience to concentrate on her delivery rather than on her intention. Fans and passive pendants do not seem to influence raw emotions or pregnant appearances. What do people want from celebrities today when they try to react to major problems?

Schaner's video offers a hint. She made it clear that she had no expectations of how people could get their recording. “I do not do this post on Fearmongers or to create a drama or to maintain comfort,” she said. “I don't need it. But I think it is worth publishing the reality of the situation and that it actually happens … I just didn't think it would actually happen. “

It is a remarkably dull statement of a celebrity, especially at a time when only a few industry numbers provide such attractions. (Hollywood seemed much loud at the beginning of Trump's first term.) Schafer also did not encourage her millions of supporters to act. She presented her anecdote uncomplicated and led her viewers through her experience. She was not understood, but not unprepared; At some point she referred to the notes she took through the executive order that led to her passport. And over and over again Schafer said that this is above all a “hard reality check” for her. “I'm only a kind of fear of how this stuff is slowly implemented,” she said. “We start to normalize the circumstances under which we entertain.” It expressed anger over the administration, but ultimately concentrated on conveying a simple message: that the label for her identity was changed without its consent.

Read: The celebrities say the loud part quietly

As a result, Schafer's video made headlines for exactly the reasons from which she intended. Spectators who may not keep an eye on the political news of the day learn that the Trump government has issued guidelines with material effects on transgender people. Relatively few people seem to have made condescending comments or hyperbolic criticism of their video, and I suspect that Schafer made their articulation unassailable: it was so direct, so transparent and measured so that they tried to condemn their tone in comparison.

After Gomez put down her video, she announced a note and said: “Apparently it is not okay to show empathy for people” – which she later deleted. But if the general reaction to Schafer's experience is an indication of signs, empathy is not what most spectators in Gomez 'tearful considerations are. Her overwhelming emotions and the implicit assumption that it would convince for the audience. Schafer actually also considered whether she deleted her video. In the caption for her TikK Post, she wrote that she had thought about replacing it with “a more concise/well -spoken thing”, but decided against it. Schafer spoke clearly and showed himself time to explain her intentions and showed that she understood the changing dynamics between celebrities and her followers online – that she could not accept her interest or support, let alone demand something from them. However, she was able to attract her attention by telling a concrete story. The separation of a actor from his performance has become difficult – and the logic, not the pathos, can be the only way to cut the noise.