The Intrusive Nature of Fandom

Singer-songwriter Grimes recently welcomed her second child, a baby girl named Exa Dark Sideræl Musk, or “Y” for short. Y’s name is not the hot topic of conversation, however. Neither is the confusion surrounding the separation of her and her husband Elon Musk. Nor is the baby being born via surrogate. The world is talking about how Grimes had her baby in secret. There are piles of conspiracy theories that stack higher than a mountain and curiosity of why she decided to keep it a secret. All of the obsession had me thinking, why are we obsessing over a celebrity keeping a secret?
So many of us obsess over our favorite celebrities; it is a part of the culture of being a fan. Mainstream celebrities, TikTokers, YouTubers, musicians, and so many more people under the public eye have their obsessive fans, their stans. Every move they make, every meal they eat, and every word they tweet is picked apart, psychoanalyzed, and obsessed over. These are people. They are, for the most part, living regular lives.
If your neighbor had a baby and never told you that they were pregnant, it would not be a big deal. It would be their personal choice in their personal life. It is the same for Grimes. Her keeping her pregnancy a secret should not be a conversation. If the world must talk about it, our tone should be celebratory. She pushed back against the celebrity-obsessed culture that we live in and kept a very intimate part of her life private. That is beautiful. And it is something that I hope other celebrities do in the years to come. What do you think, as a celebrity, can you pick and choose when you get to be a public figure?