Cultural Critic: "That Britney’s fans are harassing and stalking her in this manner, after proclaiming how badly they wanted her free, is sick"

[blackingouthenegativity]

Gerrick Kennedy is an award-winning journalist, essayist, cultural critic and writer based in Los Angeles. He is the author of Didn’t We Almost Have It All: In Defense of Whitney Houston. His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, GQ, The Hollywood Reporter, Wall Street Journal Magazine, Men’s Health, Variety, NPR Music, Billboard, Spin, i-D, Playboy, Teen Vogue, Shondaland, Cultured Magazine and the Los Angeles Times. 

He also wrote an article shortly after Britney was released from her conservatorship worrying about the media and toxic celebrity culture repeating their same mistakes with Britney. In a piece titled "We May Destroy Britney Again", Kennedy writes, 

Quote

How will she be treated when or if she returns to stage or puts out music without the oversight that had once been in place? What will the tone of People or any of the other celebrity glossies be if she makes a move that we don’t understand—or “approve” of? Right now there doesn’t appear to be much room to consider what she actually wants as the speculation about what she will do occupies the media. So what happens if it turns out that true liberation for Spears means being freed from us? Will we still love her the same? Will we still root for her as loudly as we did when she broke her silence and allowed us to bear witness to her trauma?

A new Britney Spears is loading—one we’ve been hoping returned to us freely from the chain of conservatorship. We were already given Britney Spears once and we destroyed her with our expectations, our pressures, our shame, and our humiliation. We ruined Britney for making mistakes, for being human, for being a young woman navigating the world with fame and adoration at her toes. Are we going to do it again, or are we going to show up differently this time?

Link to his full opinion piece about Britney

We May Destroy Britney Again

CODA.BULLETIN.COM

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Britney Spears is finally being freed from conservatorship but I'm afraid we will break her again with our expectations and judgement of what she does next.

 

[GlitterRain]

[s&m]

not even surprised  

[Matou]

Actually people who "destroy" her are free and her fans are not all the same.

[Heitorzinho]

What an incredible article!

[Stefani]

They need to realize that BAnon =/= Britney's true fans.

[Henry.]

It's insanely dumb to label all fans like that 

[blackingouthenegativity]

I personally don't get offended when I hear Britney fans referred to as a block, but I do agree that it would be nice for the media to report on the nuances within our fanbase.

Mostly because I'm convinced some of them on social media may be friends of Team Con

[jordeezy]

Journalist schmournalist.  We are equally as accredited to write our own narrative. Girl bye. 

 

Edited February 1 by jordeezy

[easy]

the media and general public do not actually care about the things they proclaim to care about especially when it comes to mental health awareness, change, and understanding. the media goes with the flow of what will give them the best story, it's why "we're sorry britney!" was so popular until it was "is britney ok?" that turned the tide. and the general public doesn't want to think for themselves, they wanna be fed info and smile and agree. conspiracy theorist believe they're being free/critical thinkers when in reality they're falling into the trap set by the media. a happy, healthy, learning, growing britney is not as profitable as the "out of control" britney they created in 2007. so they're trying again. i don't get offended over articles like this that lump britney fans together. i always feel like if you're not part of the problem of trivializing and weaponizing britney's mental health, then no one is talking about you. 

[Jsken]

I can't get past lumping Britney fans in with the Banon weirdos as if we aren't over here condemning that ****. 

[One More Time]

“Cultural critic” 

[blackingouthenegativity]

Just now, One More Time said:

“Cultural critic” 

Did you read the bio or were you too busy looking for untrue rumors from random Twitter accounts?

[blackingouthenegativity]

9 minutes ago, easy said:

i don't get offended over articles like this that lump britney fans together.

I'm puzzled that this is the reaction to this thread. If you're confident you're one of the good fans, it shouldn't bother you. And if it does, all the more reason to call out this bad behavior and encouraging people to do better. 

[One More Time]

34 minutes ago, Henry. said:

It's insanely dumb to label all fans like that 

I think she wants to take cero responsibility for what happened and is happening to Britney. Fans aren’t the ones after her like that it’s the GP once again. 

Edited February 1 by One More Time

[One More Time]

2 minutes ago, blackingouthenegativity said:

Did you read the bio or were you too busy looking for untrue rumors from random Twitter accounts?

 

Just now, One More Time said:

I think she wants to take cero responsibility for what happened and is happening to Britney. Fans aren’t the ones after her like that it’s the GP once again. 

Edited February 1 by One More Time

[blackingouthenegativity]

Just now, One More Time said:

I think she wants to tack cero responsibility for what happened and is happening to Britney. Fans aren’t the ones after her like that it’s the GP once again. 

What? I'm genuinely not sure what you're trying to say in the first sentence. 

But the article talks about the media's role in all of this. I'm so confused why you're getting so defensive. 

[easy]

1 minute ago, blackingouthenegativity said:

I'm puzzled that this is the reaction to this thread. If you're confident you're one of the good fans, it shouldn't bother you. And if it does, all the more reason to call out this bad behavior and encouraging people to do better. 

[One More Time]

1 minute ago, blackingouthenegativity said:

What? I'm genuinely not sure what you're trying to say in the first sentence. 

But the article talks about the media's role in all of this. I'm so confused why you're getting so defensive. 

The point is that this cultural critic is revealing how people hate on Britney just to hate on someone. But she is doing the same thing after all and she is not admitting she has a role on all of that and all our society does. She turned the focal point in some group of people and that is very (to say at the last) questionable 

[generation glory]

55 minutes ago, Stefani said:

They need to realize that BAnon =/= Britney's true fans.

Technically true but there are still threads/fans wanting her to record, perform, tour again, do this and do that, when Britney has clearly said numerous times that she doesn’t want to do any of that anymore. She didn’t say ‘no I don’t want to do those things right now’. Fans need to ACCEPT THAT.

The majority of the fandom is not Banon yet many are still are expecting or wanting things from her that she’s not willing to give. If she ever does have a change of heart she’ll let us know but that isn’t happening.
 

For now she’s doing her own thing privately with people she wants in her life. She’s writing her book. She’s showing up on social media whenever she chooses, on her own terms. That’s just about it. No matter what we think about her socials or post-cship Britney, we have to let her be.