Click here to read the full article.
Kelly Clarkson does not seem to be winning the war she haphazardly declared against a Brooklyn novelty store. But the mere fact of its existence is proof that Clarkson is providing the public a service, of sorts. For
too long, celebrities have been PR-trained and social-media-managed within an inch of their lives. Clarkson, Twitter fingers at the ready, provided a long weekend’s worth of entertainment — and a nostalgic reminder of a time when stars used to log on and indulge their messiest selves.
The facts of the Art of Play Affair are in dispute. Clarkson, in her initial missive on X, declared that she had been “treated like Julia Roberts character [sic] in Pretty Woman” when she’d asked to buy “a few things.” The store, a home-goods and puzzle shop that also hosts close-up magic shows, declared on Instagram that the pop star and “The Voice” mentor had specifically asked to buy “‘Molly,’ a one-of-a-kind singing and dancing bird automaton” who was not for sale. (The store emphasized, in their message, that they hoped to make all guests feel welcome and that having the ire of Clarkson’s fan army trained on them was “a surreal experience.”) Unsatisfied, Clarkson declared that the bird had been for sale (for $15,000, at that), announcing that the store’s employee was “not only rude, you’re also a liar. Got it.”
It’s worth taking seriously the human cost of a major star deciding to call the manager on a random store, when “the manager” is “her nearly 9 million followers”; someone at Art of Play has to be the one to monitor Yelp comments and to answer the phone and to absorb the ire of those who think Clarkson should have been able to take Molly the bird automaton home and try to teach it to sing “Since U Been Gone.” And yet… with that acknowledged, we can note that something about this story tickles an understimulated pleasure center.
Social media, before it became a daily stream of indignities and atrocities in which many of us, for some strange reason, soak our brains — well, it used to be fun. But some time after that reality-TV star with a lot of opinions about Kristen Stewart started governing via Tweet, the timeline got darker. Around that same time, major stars started taking their cues from a buttoned-up younger generation of celebrities who wisely understood that social media is for image burnishment, not customer-service complaints. The concept of hiring an agency to run one’s social media, presenting a fun and positive side, became in vogue. (These accounts tend to have the vibe of an episode of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” before Ellen fell from grace and fled the country — smiley, dancey, leaning away from drama and toward a uniting, lobotomized concept of Happy.)
Clarkson once won a televised talent competition on the basis of her relatability, and, reading her posts, that seems very long ago indeed. Repeating, more loudly, that you had a lot of money you wanted to spend but were treated like a common poor person (which you are not!) is, in the midst of an affordability crisis, a weird look. And that’s true even before one remembers this is all about a mechanical bird that may or may not have been on sale for $15,000.
But what a relief to see the app now known as X used for something other than airing out white-supremacist talking points! Since Elon Musk’s takeover of the site, its new putative “free speech” mission has made it less hospitable for celebrities speaking freely. We used to have Cher announcing she celebrated Madonna’s birthday with a colonic, or Rihanna telling Kendall Jenner not to come to her concert, or Lindsay Lohan randomly life-tweeting the Brexit referendum… just because! The celebrities who remain on social media aren’t bringing that energy. Even Clarkson has lately just been posting promotional material about her music and TV work.
That is, until something happened at a housewares store. Whatever passed between the songstress and the songbird is known only to those lucky people who were inside Art of Play for Clarkson’s visit. But the aftermath reveals a side of Clarkson that is juicily, messily human in a way she might never have allowed herself to be on camera. (“I say things others think I shouldn’t say sometimes,” reads her bio on X — yeah, we know!)
To unload on a store with both barrels over a perceived slight is chaotic and inconsiderate, to say the least. But in an era in which the meaning of “diva” has drifted to “talented woman who sings well,” Clarkson has provided a reminder of what the term actually means. And the intriguingly contradictory Clarkson, the twangy singer who stole our hearts and who’s now trying to requisition luxury puppets, has this much going for her: Her posts, refreshingly enough, are definitely not being written by anyone but herself.
