A number of you have come out and said you will leave the country if Trump gets elected. There are probably some who say the same about Bernie Sanders (okay, so Bill O'Reilly is the only one I can find), but you're pretty much all full of complete shit. Here's a list of some folks who failed to follow through when Obama got re-elected. Yeah, Ted Nugent is still breathing American air instead of Someplace-far-away air. In the end it really doesn't matter if you're full of shit or not. This post assumes you will actually follow through with your tenuous promises, and if you can stay off Twitter long enough to finish reading this, I will explain why that doesn't matter either.
A herd of celebrities in their natural habitat, engaging in a ritual to ward off obscurity.
So basically, the TL;DR is: go ahead, dumbass. Nobody gives a shit. Here's why.
1. Nobody actually notices that you're here in the first place.
Ask any American where you live and they'll guess one of three places:
- LA
- New York City
- Fuck if I know
We aren't seeing your asses in line at Subway or trying to unfuck something at the DMV. We see you on TV. On the internet. On the cover of the magazines we pass by on the way to put our cereal on the conveyor belt at Kroger. Or actually inside one if we happen to find ourselves trapped in a waiting room somewhere with a dead phone battery. You could live in Nebraska or in Calcutta and we really wouldn't know the difference. Nobody cares where you are as long as you appear occasionally in front of our fat faces in conjunction with a giant tub of buttered popcorn. And if you somehow struggle to manage even that -- if you slowly fade into the celebrity oblivion that can only be avoided by making an "accidentally leaked" sex tape -- nobody cares still. We won't notice you're even gone until years later. We'll stop a moment and suddenly think, "Oh shit. What happened to Neve Campbell?" And then we'll go right back to not giving a shit because now we have Hugh Jackman and Jennifer Lawrence and those two dashing up-and-comers who were in the new Star Wars. And when those people are gone it won't matter because we'll have somebody named Tanning Chatum or Garrett McNatharoy or Jessyka Robbins.
2. We have the internet.
A loving couple enjoys a leisurely moment of celebrity tweet consumption together.
Go ahead. Leave. You'll still be on Twitter and Instagram and your gorgeous, Proactiv-ated face will still be accessible on networks and Hulu and Amazon and Netflix, YouTube, sometimes Pornhub. Do you understand what that means? It'll be like you never even left. You're in our living rooms and on our phones. You chose to trade your ability to escape us for fame and some IMDB credits. Maybe free stuff from IKEA. I don't know the actual schematics behind you getting free stuff. I just know that it happens. You can't undo all that just by hitching a plane to Toronto. You aren't going to suddenly trade the thing you traded your soul for because someone got elected to a not-as-powerful-as-you-think position for a few years. You'll still be here to entertain or annoy us by way of social media and click-bait news. If you don't believe me, look at the Kardashians. They don't actually offer any value to society, but they're all over the place. Most of us wish they would go away, but because of the internet and asshole marketing and publicity departments, we are made to suffer.
3. We don't need your money.
I was trying to find some potential benefit of having your shit parked on American soil. I thought maybe your money would help our economy or something, but then I realized it doesn't matter. You're still going to buy the iPhone 7 when it comes out, you're still going to buy shit from Amazon.com. Okay, so those are both giant corporations, but what about all the mom and pop shops you support? What about the local economy and your positive impact? Well, there are like 9 of you, so no. It won't matter if you aren't there to buy gelato from that one quaint little shop every Tuesday. Someone else will just take your place. Nine people moving away from Los Angeles, New York City, or Fuck If I Know aren't going to make a noticeable impact. If you lived in Van Tassell, Wyoming, that might be a different story. Even so, the bottom line is your money isn't limited to a geographic location anyway. We have damn Paypal now.
4. We don't need your bullshit opinions.
It might be tempting to think that your activism will be missed, but I would like to reiterate my earlier point that, because of the internet, we'll still be hearing your opinions. And because I'm a big huge fan of freedom and the 1st Amendment, I will be the first to defend your right to propagate said opinion, but what I won't do is pretend it is in any way more important than the opinions espoused by the rest of us. We all have opinions, and yours is just as bullshit as mine is. Sure, you might have more influence with your opinions -- you have a larger network to help spread your ideas -- but if you left America that doesn't in any way mean we are suddenly delivered from listening to them. Hell, we'll likely keep on contributing to the spread of that stupidity (assuming your opinion is stupid, which is different than being bullshit; it might very well be some intelligent bullshit). You're still just like the rest of us, still hooked up to the teat of the internet, and you'll still do your part to help share Kony 2012 videos. But just like everything else, even if you didn't it wouldn't matter. There are 7 billion people on the planet, all of whom have opinions. So unless your opinion is unique in a way that changes the landscape of the world, we can probably get by without it. The same applies to everyone. This entire post is bullshit.
Stewart couldn't have anticipated his powerful medicine being used against him.
5. You're a dancing monkey. You are totally expendable.
Let's be honest here. Your job is to entertain us. You're no different than athletes, musicians, or any other kind of performer. There are literally millions of people lined up to replace you, hoping against all hope that they'll get a chance to do what you do. You have zero job security outside of your contracts. Your job is to make some studio as much money as possible. They're not going to freak out if you leave, because someone else will just ooze into the fleeting void you left behind. Someone else that will make just as much money, maybe more, for those executives. Even if you live in an area where there are no other celebrities, it doesn't matter because this isn't the time of the goddamn Oregon Trail. It doesn't take six months for your replacement to arrive, having had to contend with dysentery, bears, and broken wagon tongues. We have planes now, and your surrogate can literally be in a hotel in a few hours.
But celebrities are people, too!
You're right. It may seem like I'm being too hard on you. Some people might even shed a tear for you. Even so, you are all people with feelings and you take poops and stuff. I get it. You're human. Which is the entire point I'm trying to make. You're not that special. You won't be missed at all, partly because we are an oblivious society and partly because you won't really be gone. It is actually a sad state of affairs, this celebrity business. I'm aware that these companies are vampires. These executives are leeching off you, but no more so than we are. We consume you. We gorge ourselves on celebrity worship culture, and because you are just objects to society, you will be tossed aside when we are done with you. That is a shame, but that is the way of things. Threatening to leave doesn't really do anything. It's not really a threat. So if you really want to leave, by all means. Book that flight to Paris or Manila. We'll see you on Twitter next Tuesday. Until then, though...bye, Felicia.
